The Art of My Life

by Ann Lee Miller

  “Maybe if you’d quit jabbering at me, I could convince her.”

  Aly laughed. “I’m gone.” She stood. “And, Fish, for the record, I know you were only hitting on me to annoy Cal.”

  “Did it work?”

  “He was annoyed.” She stopped like she wanted to say something else, but pivoted and exited the pew. “Good luck with that little project.” She walked through the back doors of the sanctuary.

  Did she mean annoying Cal or convincing Missy he saw her as an adult?

  Missy headed up the center aisle of the church toward him.

  He motioned to her. “Got a sec?”

  She eyed him warily as she stepped into the pew. She slid onto the bench beside him and crossed her nylon-covered legs.

  He pulled his gaze from her legs and cracked a smile to put her at ease. “I got you something for Christmas.”

  Her eyes widened. “I didn’t get you anything.”

  “Except for the fishing lure with the yellow feather on it, the sand dollar, the scrapbook of every fish I ever caught.”

  Missy looked at her hands in her lap, her cheeks blushing all the way to the three tiny pearl studs she always wore in her ears.

  “I still have those, and a bunch of other gifts you gave me over the years. They’re with my stuff in a box in your parents’ garage labeled kitchen because I didn’t want Cal to give me a hard time about keeping them.”

  Missy’s chin popped up. “You kept them?”

  He dropped an arm across the pew behind her, his fingertips barely touching the shoulder of her soft, cream sweater. “They were…. You were… are… special.” He set the Killman Jewelry Store box in her hands. “Open it.”

  Missy’s hands quivered as she slid the ribbon from the box and lifted the lid. Then, they went still as she stared at the single pearl on a delicate gold chain. “Thanks, Sean. It’s beautiful.” Her voice was subdued.

  “I don’t think you’re a snot-nosed kid anymore.” He brushed her cheek with his lips.

  Missy’s eyes blinked back at him, unasked questions swimming in the depths, questions he didn’t know the answers to. Questions he didn’t want to think about. He stood. “Let’s go check out your mom’s Christmas cookies.”

  Cal followed Aly into her condo. The charcoals he’d given her for her birthday hung on the wall behind the sofa. One of his doodles he’d seen there before hung in the hallway.

  Aly set her purse on the counter. “Thanks for going with me to Mom’s for Christmas dinner.”

  “Sure. No problem.” He pulled an envelope from the back pocket of his jeans and sat on the couch.

  Aly had given him a Nichols surf shop T-shirt last night at his family’s gift exchange, but he’d told her he’d give her gift to her today.

  “I wanted to get you something for Christmas. This isn’t exactly a gift. It’s already yours, I just got it in writing.” He handed her the envelope.

  Aly sat on the chair across from him and ripped open the envelope. Her eyes scanned the forms he’d downloaded and filled out. Disbelief, annoyance washed her face. “You want to put me on the boat title? Why? You know how I feel about Dad’s money. I don’t want to be half owner of the boat.”

  “Think about how I feel. You bailed me out of my loan, quit your job, and the business still tanks. At least, let me keep my pride when this is all said and done. You really deserve the whole boat, but I knew you’d pitch a royal fit.”

  “It’s your grandparents’ boat.”

  “It’s my boat. When the loan was paid off, my folks signed it over to me because Henna gave me the Escape. You’ve always wanted your own business. We can sell it, and you’ll have capital for whatever business you want.”

  Aly crossed her arms. “I’m not giving up on the business.”

  “If you want to believe there is still life in the business, that’s your choice.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You of all people know how broke I am. I wanted to give you a gift. This is all I’ve got. Just take it.”

  Aly sighed. “Fine. I’ll sign the papers tomorrow. You could have just shown me your tattoo.”

  Cal laughed. “It’s really been eating you, huh?”

  “Like, since high school.”

  He grinned and slowly sobered as he stared into her eyes. Call it craziness, but he wanted Aly to know how he felt, even though he was back to square one in becoming a man Aly would consider marrying. No matter what Aly thought, the business would never fly. “Okay.” He stood.

  Aly’s eyes rounded.

  He sucked in a breath. Getting naked with Aly was at the top of the list of things he wanted to do in life, but this was awkward—all but stripping in front of her under enough wattage to illuminate a soccer field.

  But only a wuss would back out now. He stared her down and unbuckled his belt.

  Aly swallowed.

  His eyes slipped to the cleft between her breasts, now visible in the vee of her sweater because he stood above her. Awkward turned riveting. He slipped free the button on his jeans and felt the fabric loosen around his hips.

  Aly’s gaze intensified. She caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

  He turned his back on her and slid his jeans and boxers down a few inches. His heart hammered. Would she laugh? Would she pity him? Would she feel honored? His lungs inflated and deflated. A minute stretched into two. He stared at the blank, olive wall. In his mind he imagined what Aly saw on his lower back near his left hip—a pink ornate heart encasing a blonde girl on a pink surfboard. Aly scrawled across the board. A heart matching the outer border had been engraved on the fin. He’d designed it himself when he was seventeen.

  He looked over his shoulder at Aly.

  Tears trickled from the corners of her eyes. She cleared her throat. “Th-thank you for showing me.”

  He looked back at the wall, puzzling over the expression in her eyes. Something soft, happy—almost as if she loved him, too. His hands went to the waistband of his jeans.

  Aly’s fingers closed around his bare hips.

  He froze. His breath sucked in.

  Her mouth pressed against the tattoo, then whispered kisses across the ink.

  Goosebumps rose on his flesh. His body turned hyper aware of every touch, the warmth of her breath on his skin.

  Was Aly simply accepting his love? Was she saying she loved him, too? Did she mean to make him crazy with wanting? Hope bottle-rocketed inside him.

  She tugged the material at his hips and it slipped another inch.

  His breath came quick and loud in the silence.

  He latched onto the last rational thought in his brain—whether or not he had a prayer of a future with Aly, protecting her meant no sex today. He grabbed hold of her wrists. “No.” The word tore from his throat and came out in a croak.

  Aly’s fingers went limp, and she pulled out of his grasp.

  Cal tucked in his shirt, buttoned his pants, and buckled his belt, his body screaming for the opposite. He faced her and drew a shaky breath.

  She had drawn herself into a ball in the chair, face tucked into her knees. Her shoulders shook.

  He didn’t trust himself to touch her. “Aly.”

  She looked up, mascara smearing her eyes black

  “I want to do this right. Us.” He’d get a job, enroll in college part time, propose to Aly.

  “I’m so embarrassed.”

  He knelt down beside her chair. “I want you. But not like this—”

  His text message alert chimed, and he slipped his phone out of his pocket without thinking. His probation officer. On Christmas Day. Really? Reminder: your appointment is 4 p.m. 12/28. There are consequences to skipping meetings. Tell me what’s going on. Look at options.

  Dread sloshed over him and chilled all desire to finish this conversation with Aly. He shoved his phone back into his pocket. “I have to go.”

  Chapter 18

  December 26

  So, I made a wrong stroke. I knew it was wrong, but I did it anyw
ay because I wanted to. Now the picture is ruined. I suspected I’d already screwed it up a long time ago, but now sunlight gleams on my personal disaster. It doesn’t matter what I do with the canvas, it’s etched on my soul and will always live inside me.

  Aly at www.The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com

  Fish leaned back against the hull and listened to the water slosh against the outside of the boat. The space-heater hummed on the sole beside his bunk. He downed the last quarter of a Pabst Blue Ribbon, crushed the can, and shot it into a cardboard box against the bulkhead. Maybe he’d worked up the courage for his New Year’s Eve ritual. He fired up his laptop.

  A knock sounded on the cabin door, then Missy’s head poked in. “Sean, you here?”

  Surprise stunned him for a moment, stopping his answer until after Missy had already stepped inside and shut the door. “Yo…. Geez. Walk right in. I could have been in my boxers.”

  “I’ve seen them fifty times—you and Cal sprawled on the living room floor after a sleepover.”

  “Or less.”

  “Seen that, too.”

  He chuckled. “You were, what, all of six?”

  “Nine. I didn’t know jumping naked off the roof into your parents’ pool required that much noise. You’re lucky only Chas and I came running.”

  Fish laughed outright. “Hoo, baby, did Mom come unglued.”

  Missy’s orange blossom scent wafted toward him. Her coat gaped and he glimpsed a plunging neckline of yellow material threaded with sparkly silver.

  “I’m on my way to a New Year’s Eve party.” She fanned herself and slipped off the coat. “It’s five hundred degrees in here.”

  His eyes skimmed down her dress and silky stockings to her high heels, then meandered north again. “You’re smokin’ hot tonight, Mis.”

  “You’re drunk.”

  “Two PBRs down, hardly drunk, but four to go.”

  She fingered the pearl that rested on her chest. “I stopped by to say the necklace is really sweet.”

  His gaze stuck on her chest. “You could stay for my seventh annual New Year’s Eve-getting-loaded-and-re-reading-all-my-family’s-e-mails.”

  “I’m on my way to a party, and I’m going to get kissed. I’m going to find The One by the time I graduate at the end of the semester—like Where’s Waldo, only in real life.”

  He knew better than to offer to do the kissing. “How did you frickin’ get to be a senior at the same time as I am?”

  “Ever hear of dual-enrollment, summer school, on-line classes?”

  “So, besides sex—” He held up a hand. “You’re the one who brought it up on Thanksgiving—why are you so hot to get married? I’m twenty-five and don’t care if marriage is another ten years down the road.”

  “Mom said I take Cal’s drama and Jesse’s preoccupation with his family too hard because I expect things from my brothers I should only expect from my husband.”

  God, she was beautiful. She should be the center of somebody’s universe. He patted the bunk beside him. “Come on, look at a few pics. Get me started.”

  Missy softened. “You’re killing me.” She dropped her coat on the bunk, stashed the four sweating beers he’d lined up on the shelf back in the cooler, and slid onto the rumpled sleeping bag beside him.

  He pulled up last year’s family photo, and it axed into his gut like it had the only other time he’d viewed it. He needed another beer, but he dreaded Missy’s disapproval more than the pain.

  He made himself stare at the images on the screen as if the hurt would eventually cauterize. He looked at his parents first. They were the easiest because they had changed the least in the five years since his family had visited the States. There were more lines on Dad’s face, Mom had gained some weight. They looked… happy. They should feel as ripped up inside as he did.

  Chelsea had been eighteen when he saw her last. This was the first photo where she wasn’t wearing glasses. Could she get contacts in the jungle, or had she just started taking off her glasses for photos. She’d gone to college online, and taught at the orphanage, dated a black-haired, black-eyed Peruvian named Luís Angel who was a stranger to Fish. Resentment bubbled up that Chelsea hadn’t waited for him to work out his issues before plowing ahead with her life.

  Seventeen-year-old Susanna had gone through puberty since he saw her last. Gone were the knobby knees and giraffe legs. Even though he could see remnants of the little girl he knew, she was almost as much a stranger as Chelsea’s boyfriend.

  Chas, at nineteen, had grown the shoulders of a man and the body of an athlete. Missy’s arm brushed against him, reminding him of her interest in Chas.

  But Missy was here, not in Peru, lounging across the landscape of his sleeping bag in her clingy yellow dress. He scooted closer to Missy, sealing his arm against hers, soaking up the comfort of her presence.

  They read e-mail after e-mail. At some point Missy kicked off her shoes. She made no mention of leaving.

  His eyes returned to his pearl and dipped lower, as they had too many times to count.

  Missy looked up from a photo of the orphans playing soccer. “Hey!”

  “Just admiring my excellent taste in necklaces.”

  “Right.”

  He shrugged. “Can you blame me for admiring the view?”

  “You’ve had too much to drink.”

  “I don’t think any differently drunk—which I’m not. I just say what’s on my mind.”

  “You’re a perv.”

  “I’m a guy.”

  Missy sobered. “Sean, what you’re doing to yourself and your family is sick.”

  “Your family didn’t ditch you before your senior year to chase some humanitarian dream.”

  Missy’s eyes seemed to peer into his soul. “I’ve always wondered why you didn’t go with them.”

  He debated telling her. It wasn’t something he’d ever said out loud. He fortified himself with a deep breath. “Cal was just starting to smoke Henna’s weed on a regular basis. A lot of people can party on the weekends and not give it another thought the rest of the week. It was different with him. I thought if I were around, I could sort of keep a lid on things.”

  “And did you?”

  He shrugged. “I sure gave it my best, but who knows? He was always there for me….”

  “If you made the choice to stay behind, why are you angry with your folks?”

  “When you put it like that, I sound pretty childish.”

  “Well—”

  “Cal razzes me about being sentimental—like keeping all your gifts. But my senior year was important to me. A milestone. My parents didn’t come home for graduation. They didn’t see me walk, my honor cords, didn’t go to baccalaureate, didn’t watch me win the Elks scholarship. They had to follow my senior year on the golf team long distance. I missed Chas’ entire soccer career, Susanna’s first training bra—which evidently was quite a crack-up in the family lore. Chelsea and I were close, and we’ve grown apart.”

  “I never knew you felt this way.”

  “I guess I just wanted it both ways. I wanted Cal and my senior year, and I wanted my family. And I couldn’t even imagine moving to a foreign country.”

  She pressed her pointer finger into his side.

  “Letting the sad out?”

  “Yeah.”

  They stared at each other, their foreheads inches apart.

  “You’ve got to forgive them, Sean. This marathon grudge is hurting all of you.”

  He smiled a little. “I know you’re right. I’m going to do it soon.”

  He leaned back against the hull. “Like it or not, you always pushed me to become the best version of myself.”

  Missy cleared her throat, looked embarrassed. She tapped the screen. “Does Chas get to play any soccer or does he just ref?”

  “Is Chas on your list?”

  “Yeah, I’m thinking about going down to visit your family after graduation if I don’t find Waldo.”

  Fish clapped the computer
shut. “You’re going to club my little brother over the head and drag him off to your cave?”

  She shrugged. “If that’s what it takes.”

  “Don’t knock yourself out with all that enthusiasm. You need a man who wants you, who works hard to get what he wants, then spends the rest of his life grateful he got you.”

  Missy scooted to the edge of the bunk and slid her feet into her shoes. A sigh slipped out. “In a perfect world.”

  He dropped his feet to the floor, reached across Missy, and planted a hand on the bunk beside her thigh. He searched the brown depths of her eyes, breathing her breath.

  She didn’t move.

  He settled his lips on hers in a long, slow kiss that felt like coming home.

  Missy’s gentle response surprised him and stirred his hunger. He ended the kiss, only their mouths having touched, in what was probably the sexiest and most chaste kiss of his life.

  He smiled into her glassy eyes. “Happy New Year.” He ran a knuckle along her jaw, and watched her eyes dilate. “You said you were after a kiss tonight. It was the least I could do, since you missed your party for me.”

  Her head gave a little shake as if she were coming out of a trance. She hopped off the bunk, grabbed her coat, and clunked her high-heels across the sole and through the doorway.

  Her head poked back in. “Don’t you get any ideas, Sean Fisher. You’re not worming your way onto my list.”

  He smirked. “Not so long ago, I was the list.”

  The door slammed.

  He laughed. But the laugh died in his chest. Missy’s kiss still dampened his lips, a tackle he hadn’t seen coming. He sprawled on his back, her list looming over him. What was he going to do?

  She wasn’t interested in just going out. Any guy who wanted to put his hands on her had better be ready to stand in the Winn Dixie check-out line buying Tampax and Huggies.

  He needed to make a decision about his career. If he went the political route he’d always dreamed of, he needed to chase his career first, then settle down. No way would he bail on his kids or uproot them like his parents had. If he went into legal aid, he could fit into Missy’s time schedule. But he didn’t let go of anything easily—grudges, dreams, or people.