Summer on Main Street

by Crista McHugh

  ***

  Ash finished wiping the last dish and set it in the strainer. After a late lunch of leftover pizza, her stomach had finally calmed down a little. She tuned the radio to a local jazz station and made her way into the living room. Eddie had left one message on her voicemail about an hour ago. She hadn’t called him back yet.

  What do I say? Do I act like nothing happened? Do I pretend it didn’t change anything? Should she call him back? Invite him up? And if she did, what happened when—or if—he kissed her again? Without Jen to interrupt them, Ash wasn’t sure she could trust herself to stop what had started last night.

  She shook her head as another thought snuck its way in. What if it didn’t mean anything to him? Her fingers tightened around the arm of the couch. She knew as well as anyone how much Eddie liked women. Maybe kissing to him was as natural as breathing. Maybe he’d been swept away by the late hour and too much to drink. Maybe he’d simply wanted to see how she tasted, so he could add her to his list and keep on moving.

  Ash tried to quiet the buzzing inside her skull. Pulling a notebook from the end table, she tucked her legs beneath her, meaning to work out a plan. That was how she’d always tackled the tough problems, back in school. Lay everything out on paper, and then sort out a solution.

  She found a pencil and made two columns. She wrote “Eddie” on top of one and “Colin” headed the other. A solid line split the two in half. Now just be objective. Just come up with a list, something measurable, so you can balance one against the other and—

  Someone knocked on her door.

  The pencil dropped from her fingers and rolled beneath the couch.

  “Ash?”

  Eddie. Desire sang inside her veins. “Just a minute.” She stuffed the notebook between two cushions and went to the door. Opening it, she blurted a breathless, “Hi.”

  The way he looked down at her, with sleep-wrinkles lining the edge of his face and a toothpaste smile, sent her mind reeling all over again. “Hi, yourself.”

  He didn’t try to kiss her, or even touch her. He just stood there and looked, the way he had the very first day he moved in. “You feeling okay?”

  She wasn’t sure how to answer that. “Sure. You?”

  He leaned in the doorway. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  She went cold. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Sure.” She pushed the door wider, certain by his serious tone that he meant to set the record straight. He’d say last night had been a mistake. He’d tell her he was involved with someone else. Or that he was getting back together with Cass.

  Ash bit her bottom lip and sat down on the couch. Stuffing her hands beneath her thighs, so they wouldn’t betray her by reaching over to touch him, she waited.

  “I know we’ve only been living here a few weeks.”

  True.

  “And I know you think I’m the kind of guy who sleeps around, or who flirts with lots of women, but doesn’t mean anything by it.”

  She found herself holding her breath. “I don’t think that.”

  “Sure you do.”

  Ash looked at her lap until he reached over and stroked her cheek with his thumb. “I couldn’t sleep last night,” he confessed.

  Her heart sped up a little.

  “I thought… there’s so much I don’t even know about this woman.”

  Guilt replaced giddiness inside Ash’s chest. She didn’t mean to keep secrets from Eddie. Really, she didn’t. She just wouldn’t know where to begin to tell him the truth.

  “But then, there are things you don’t know about me, either. Things that might help you understand.”

  She looked up at the odd tone in his voice. “What things?”

  Eddie looked past her, over her head, to a shadow that might have danced on the wall behind her. “When I was eight years old, my mom got cancer.”

  “Oh, Eddie… I’m so sorry.” The words left her mouth and bounced like hollow cylinders around the room. How much we hide, wrap close to the skin. Just when it seemed she knew her housemate, more layers of him peeled away, so that each time she saw him, a new Eddie emerged.

  “She was just thirty-two,” he went on. “God, it was scary, especially for a little kid. I couldn’t understand what was happening. Everyone else’s mom came to Open House and baked cookies for snack time and rode on the bus with us to the zoo. Mine just changed from this happy person who smiled all the time to a skeleton that lay on our couch in the living room and slept. Fourth grade? I can’t tell you a thing about it. I spent all my time at the hospital visiting my mom, or taking care of my little brother and sister at home.”

  “I didn’t know you had siblings,” Ash interrupted. He’d never mentioned them, and only one picture of Eddie, at his high school graduation with both parents, stood in a frame on his television downstairs.

  His face clouded. “Kelly’s eighteen. Just finished high school. And my brother Cal…” He left the sentence unfinished.

  “But after awhile, she got better, like the huge miracle everyone had prayed for. She got better, and went into remission, and things were great then. My dad was in a good mood, and even Kelly and Cal didn’t annoy me so much. I was happy, really happy, you know?”

  Ash nodded.

  “I thought, if only things stay just like this, with my mom healthy and all of us getting along, then I couldn’t ever want anything else.” Eddie took a long breath. “For a long time, I really was that happy.” His hair fell over his eyes as he looked down at his lap.

  “Then Cal died in a car accident.”

  “Oh, Eddie.” My God, how much sorrow could one soul take? Ash looked again at her housemate, and this time she saw pain deep and lasting. He does know what it means to have a family ripped apart. Maybe he’d understand about mine, after all. Little pieces of the reserve inside her began to crack apart.

  “It was three years ago. We were driving home from the movies, and Cal was laughing over some stupid joke he’d heard in school,” Eddie continued. “He was seventeen, you know, trying to act all grown up, but still a stupid kid, too big for his shoes and tripping over his feet.”

  A smile flashed onto his face but was gone in an instant.

  “I was driving, and we were just a couple of blocks from home when this car ran a red light, ran right into us without even slowing down. I tried to stop, but everything happened so fast…and I wasn’t looking the way I usually do. I was watching Cal tell the joke and thinking how cool he was going to be when he got a little older. I’d always thought he was a dork, but he was starting to get it. He was starting to turn into a man.” Eddie swallowed as if something in his throat hurt him. “He would have been such a good man.”

  His next words came out in a sob. “The light was green, my way. It wasn’t red, or even yellow. It was green. I know it was, because I still see it every night in my sleep.” He squeezed the bridge of his nose, but two tears spilled over his fingers before he could stop them.

  “Eddie, you don’t have to…” But he waved away her words with a damp hand. “It was a drunk driver, so bombed that he never even remembered hitting us. Ran into Cal’s side of the car, square on. Docs said he never felt anything, died on impact. I hope so. ‘Cause all I thought about after that was what if we’d gone to the late show, or what if we’d stopped for a burger the way Cal wanted to? What if that guy hadn’t left the bar when he did?” Eddie’s voice began to shake a little.

  “Sometimes I think Cal’s lucky. At least he’s free. I deal with it every day. Every fuckin’ day.”

  For a few minutes, his ragged breaths were the only sound in the apartment. Ash didn’t move. Didn’t speak. She didn’t even trust herself to reach out to him in comfort.

  Eddie raised a hand and traced the line along his jawbone. “So yeah, that’s what the scars are from. Plastic surgery only does so much. The doctor said he could have gotten rid of this one…” He touched his cheek gently. “But I wanted it. I
wanted to remember.”

  He stopped talking and sat there for a long time with his eyes closed.

  You didn’t need to tell me all this, Ash wanted to say. I didn’t need to know. Yet she knew why the words had spilled from him the minute he’d sat down next to her. It was easy for them. They could sit and not say anything special. They didn’t have to be funny, or flirty, or witty, or even kind. They could just be…whatever they wanted. The realization scared the hell out of her.

  When he spoke again, Eddie looked at her with such fierce affection that her heart swooped. “But I’m happy now, Ash, really happy, for the first time in I can’t remember how long.” He shook his head. “After the accident, my life went to shit. I drank too much. I took six months off from work and slept all day. I dated the wrong women just to fill up the nights. I blamed myself for Cal’s death. Still do. Most days, to be honest, I wished I were dead too.”

  He stopped and took a breath. “Then I moved in here, and met you, and everything changed.” His hand moved over hers in soft circles, until she felt as though her insides might float away.

  “It’s different with you, Ash. It’s like I don’t have to pretend.”

  “Eddie, I—”

  “I know you’re only here for the summer.” He pulled her close, wrapping both arms around her and murmuring into her hair. “I know that. But Boston isn’t that far away.” His lips moved against her temple. “Maybe we could give it a try. Maybe we could—”

  He twisted a little. “What am I sitting on?”

  Oh, no. Ash reached to grab the notebook, but Eddie had already pulled it from between the cushions. He smoothed its wrinkled top page and glanced down. “What is…?” His words fell away. When he looked up again, something had fallen across his face, a chilly pall that stole all warmth from his expression.

  “Who’s Colin?”

  “Eddie, it’s nothing. No one.” She took the notebook and tossed it onto the floor.

  “Your ex-boyfriend? The one you never talk about?”

  She waved a hand. “Yeah. But that’s over with. He doesn’t matter.” She tried to run her fingers across Eddie’s face and calm the irritation growing there.

  “Why are you making lists about him? About him and me?”

  “It’s nothing. It’s just…” How could she explain? “It’s something I do sometimes, to sort things out.”

  “What needs sorting out? Are you still in love with him?”

  “No. But it’s complicated.”

  “I thought you said it was over.”

  “It is.” And it isn’t.

  His voice softened then. “Then tell me about it. About him. Let me in, Ash. For once.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” she whispered. “Really.”

  Eddie punched the arm of the loveseat. “I sit here and tell you all about the accident that ripped my life in half, all about the brother I lost, and you can’t even talk to me about your ex? What is it? You don’t trust me?” With every word, his voice raised, until he was shouting.

  “That’s not it,” Ash began. “I just…” I can’t get into it, she wanted to say. I can’t tell you about Colin without telling you about my father. And I can’t tell you about my father without telling you my real name. And then you’ll know I’ve been lying to you all along.

  Eddie stared at her for another minute. Then he shot to a stand. “If you can’t trust me, there’s no way this will work. Ever.”

  Tears bubbled up to the surface, and Ash looked away in case they fell. She couldn’t think of a single thing to say.

  “You know, I’m not stupid. I know you came to Paradise because something chased you out of Boston. I know you’re running away from something. Or someone.” His voice shook. “And I don’t care. I’ve never pushed. But if you can’t even begin to tell me about it—”

  Eddie’s voice broke, and he didn’t finish, just retraced his steps to the front door and shut it behind him.

  That was what happened when you let yourself get involved, Ash thought. Her chest tightened. She never should have kissed him. She never should have become friends with him in the first place.

  But it was too late for that, and she knew it. She stared at her door, willing it open again. Suddenly, she wanted to confess everything. She wanted to look into those dark eyes and know Eddie didn’t care where she came from or who she really was. She wanted to feel his mouth on hers again. She wanted him to fold his arms around her and tell her everything would be okay.

  But she didn’t know if it would be.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Twenty-four hours of heartless rain poured down. It soaked the roof and seeped into Ash’s bedroom in the form of dreary dampness. She rearranged her furniture. She took all the recyclables to the store, careful to avoid looking at Eddie’s door on the way there and back. She rearranged her CD collection. She drove all the way to Burnt Hills, a leftover hippie colony past Silver Creek rumored to have the best hummus in the state.

  Finally, she gave in and called her mother.

  “Ashton!” Mamie Kirk’s voice wobbled. “Where have you been?”

  “I’m sorry.” She curled into a ball on the loveseat and stared at the ceiling. “It’s just…I needed to take a break from things back home. It was getting a little crazy.” Getting crazy? Already way beyond, if you want the truth.

  “Jess said you’re subletting a place in New Hampshire?” Doubt crept into her mother’s voice and hung there, waiting for Ash to correct her, to say that no, Jess was wrong, she wouldn’t do something so un-Kirk-like.

  “Mm hmm,” Ash said instead.

  “You’ve heard about your father? About the charges being dropped?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’d like to make a statement to the press,” she went on when Ash didn’t. “At the house on Martha’s Vineyard. The secretary of state will be there next week, and we’re planning on joining him and his wife for a few days.”

  God, no. Ash squeezed her eyes shut. Less than three months away from that life, and it already seemed foreign to her, as if she’d never lived it at all.

  “So will you be there?”

  “I don’t think I can make it.”

  “Ash, your father needs all of us together. As a family. You know the nomination is—”

  “I know. The most important thing in his life right now.” And that’s why he needs the shiny, happy faces of his wife and daughters with him when the cameras start snapping.

  “The thing is, I’m working,” she said. “I’m not sure I can get away.”

  Mamie didn’t answer, a quick intake of breath the only indication that she’d heard. “Well...what do you mean, exactly? You’re not…you haven’t taken a position with another firm, have you? Not up there?”

  Oh, how that would complicate things. Ash almost smiled. She could just picture the headline: “Youngest Kirk daughter turns down prestigious job in Boston only to slum in the hills of New Hampshire.” Part of her wanted to tell her mother just where she spent her working hours. It’s a jazz club in a blue-collar town. I serve people food and then clean up after them. Want me to issue a statement to the press about that? But she kept her mouth shut.

  “We’ll be at the Vineyard the whole week,” her mother said. “I’m sure you can take some time off.” She paused. “Colin asked if he can join us.”

  “What?” Ash sat straight up. “No. No way.” How dare he try to weasel his way back into her life? That’s what the phone call was all about. He didn’t miss her. He missed the Kirk name. He missed the reputation. Her cheeks burned with anger. “Forget it.”

  “Ash, please—”

  “He broke up with me, Mom. Did you know that? That Colin dumped me right after everything happened with Dad? That he was sleeping with someone else?”

  “No, I didn't. I…” Her mother choked off into silence.

  “Tell Dad I’m sorry,” Ash said. “I wish I could be there. I do. But I can’t.” She couldn't play that charade, shrug that
life on again like a skin that just slipped off for a few weeks. It wasn't that easy.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way.” Mamie hiccupped, but Ash could hear her smoothing her voice, ratcheting down any emotion that might betray her. The way she always did. The way she probably always would.

  “I’ll have Jess or Anne call you next week,” she went on, as if Ash hadn’t refused to join them at the Kirk vacation home but simply said she needed to check her calendar. “Maybe you can find some time to work us in.”

  “Mom, listen. It’s not that I don’t want to be there for Dad. I just…”

  “I know. You have a life of your own, and you want to live it. I understand that.”

  Ash weakened a little.

  “But your father needs your support. Is that too much to ask?”

  Ash didn’t answer. She didn’t know. And when her mother hung up a moment later, all she really knew was that she felt exhausted beyond belief, squeezed tight and wrung out, like laundry left too long in the rain.

  ***

  “Evenin’, boss.” J.T. flashed Ash a smile as she stepped inside Blues and Booze. The stupid umbrella she’d grabbed from her car had lasted exactly thirty seconds before it pulled itself inside out and went twisting down the sidewalk away from her.

  She ignored his greeting and stomped through the bar, checking the orders and the cash register before making her way to the kitchen.

  “Well, somebody’s got her panties in a knot,” she heard behind her. One of the guys at the bar, she supposed. Probably Jackson Todd. Or maybe Tyler Mulligan. J.T.’s cronies often hung out after their shifts at the cheese factory, slurping down a few beers before going home to their wives.

  She didn’t bother to turn around. Get it together, Ash. A bad mood isn’t going to get you anywhere. It’s not their fault your life is a total mess right now. You have work to do. So do it. She grabbed a clipboard and pulled open the coolers in the back, making notes as she went down each shelf. “More apple pie, more double-chocolate torte, still enough cheesecake…”