The Art of My Life

by Ann Lee Miller

  Cal had shown him that his dream of a career still lived under his self-created rubble. But instead of gratitude toward Cal, he clung to anger.

  No wonder Missy wanted nothing to do with him.

  At three a.m. Fish went below to wake Missy for her shift.

  She slept on the master bunk in a puddle of moonlight.

  Topside he’d been falling asleep on his feet, but now his mind flipped fully alert. Beauty. His gaze strolled over her. A sock-clad foot stuck out from under the blanket. Thick lashes rested on soft cheeks. He stopped at the pale skin where her wrist poked from her sweatshirt sleeve. Her fingers had opened in sleep, revealing his pearl in her palm.

  His hand reached toward the riot of dark silk spread across the pillow. A curl circled his finger, and his breath caught. “M—” He cleared his throat. “Missy.”

  She didn’t stir.

  He gripped her arms and gently shook her. “Wake up. I need you” —the whisper caught— “to man the helm.”

  Orange blossom scent wafted toward him as she squirmed.

  He yanked his hands from her. He didn’t want a spot on her list, just to deserve one. He’d earn back her respect.

  Cal lay on his mattress staring at the metal springs of the bunk above him. In three days he’d know whether the court would go back on the plea bargain because he hadn’t kept his part of the agreement. Would they incarcerate him for the mandatory minimum of one year and add time for his infractions?

  Aly hadn’t kissed him back, hadn’t said she’d wait for him. She was fragile. In a year or five years—however long he was locked up—someone who would take care of her heart would come along. Fish. His gut twisted. As much as he loathed the idea, at least with Fish she’d be in good hands. God, he didn’t want to go there, picturing Fish’s hands on her body. He pounded his fist into the mattress.

  He touched the cold cement block wall that separated him from Aly and shivered. Cut off. Alone. Starved for her. He’d always love Aly. The best he could hope for was that she would be happy. At least one of them would be.

  Sadness cinched him like a straight-jacket, and he couldn’t move. He wished for the anger that had deserted him hours ago.

  No sooner had he chosen to end his love affair with weed, than God’s heel poised to crush him.

  He deserved to lose Aly. God’s wrath marched through his head—the guy struck dead for touching the Ark of the Covenant, the Red Sea swallowing the Egyptian army, the Israelites locked out of the Promised Land for forty years. His mother was right. Life was all about rules and measuring up.

  Fish climbed the ladder and poked his head out of the hatch just as the fire-yellow sun eased from the Atlantic. Behind the wheel, Missy’s chin pointed toward the horizon, sunrise dusting her cheeks.

  He’d made it through the night without touching her. He couldn’t wait to get off this boat and out of Missy’s orbit. He rubbed the stubble on his face, feeling hung-over from too few hours of sleep.

  Missy smiled, blinding him like the dawn.

  The sooner he got away from Missy, the better.

  “Go back to sleep for another couple of hours. You’ve got to work today. I don’t.”

  His mouth tasted like the inside of the chum bucket. He snagged the apple from his sweatshirt pouch and took a bite. “I’m up now.” He passed Missy the apple, ripped open a Pop Tart package and handed her one.

  He checked their bearing. “Should get in by eight a.m.” He looked up from the GPS and froze in the beam of Missy’s gaze.

  He wasn’t an expert in reading people, but he’d swear Missy was telegraphing kiss me with her wide, trusting eyes. He’d called it chemistry, but it was more like centripetal force. He coughed and edged away from her, hoping that at some point the rubber band pulling them together would break, and he’d be free—maybe at five feet, maybe the length of the boat.

  He walked to the bow and craned his neck at the jib telltale, shook the mainstay as if they’d sailed through ninety-mile-an-hour winds and the stay might have loosened. He headed to the stern, peered at the dinghy trailing behind the Escape like a lone duckling.

  Missy held the half-eaten apple out to him. “What just happened—before you took a lap around the deck?”

  He took the fruit, careful to avoid Missy’s fingers, and bit into it, buying time. He could play dumb, but he and Missy had always been honest with each other. She’d see through him. “I almost kissed you.” He held up a hand to stop her reaction. “Don’t worry, I’m not going to do it. I get that I don’t make the cut for your list.” Leftover anger from her rejection after the boat-jacking flooded acid into the words.

  “Like you want babies and a minivan.” Her words dripped with sarcasm.

  “Why are you so hell-bent on a wedding and procreation?”

  “I can’t help what I want. And… maybe the guilt will go away.”

  The plaintive note in her voice pierced his own guilt. “Yeah, I get that.” He ran a hand over her hair, knocking off her hood, coming to rest on her neck. He peered into her eyes. “Maybe we could figure it out together.”

  Missy gave him a shaky smile. “I’d like that. A lot.”

  He kissed her forehead. “Friends.”

  It was past time to set off on a reconnaissance mission to find the guy he used to be. And the first thing he needed to do was reconcile with his family.

  Cal slid into the seat in front of the jail visitation video monitor and saw Fish’s face. His heart rate picked up, and soap bubbles of joy sparkled and popped through the dread of his fast-approaching court appearance. “Thanks for coming. I didn’t get to thank you for rescuing me and Aly.”

  Fish stared at him, his heart in his eyes—the heart that had always cared too deeply about just about everything.

  He wondered if Fish would speak at all.

  Fish’s Adam’s apple bobbed. He cleared his throat. “I hate seeing you in here. Ever since you went to jail the first time, I thought I could have done better by you than that yahoo attorney.”

  “No doubt.” But Cal knew he’d been lucky to dodge the one-year mandatory sentence for over twenty grams of marijuana. This time, he didn’t expect any such luck.

  “I’ve been studying the law and your case every minute since Missy and I brought the Escape back to NSB”

  “What about work, college?”

  Fish waved away Cal’s concerns. “First sick days I’ve taken. Zeke can run his own boat for a couple of days. Won’t kill him. School—I’ll catch up.” For the next half hour he spilled every scrap of information he’d dug up including each judge’s propensity for leniency or severity.

  “Mom says I should go to drug rehab—thirteen months. Do you think I need it?”

  Fish let the air out of his lungs. “There was a time, toward the end of our junior year when you were smoking all the time….”

  “And now?”

  Fish shrugged. “I haven’t been around you enough to know.”

  “Is that going to change? Is that why you’re here?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Cal leaned closer to the camera and peered into it. “Then why did you come?”

  “Because you gave up half your room and most of your life our senior year to keep me from bottoming out in depression. That’s gotta be worth something.” Fish stood. “I’ll see you in court.”

  Cal’s eyes dampened and his chest tightened. “Thanks.”

  Fish left him with something he hadn’t expected to grasp for a long time. Hope.

  Cal walked down the center aisle of the nearly empty courtroom, a bailiff trailing him. Halfway back on the left sat his parents—shoulders stiff. Before Mom turned her face toward him, he saw the white slash of her scar. His fear and pain reflected back at him from her eyes, and he looked away.

  The irons clamped around the legs of his orange jumpsuit and the hand-cuffs that held his wrists in front of him completed his humiliation. He wished his parents had stayed home. He didn’t want them to see him l
ike this.

  Fish sat in the row directly behind the defendant’s table, his unofficial counsel. Though they hadn’t discussed it, after Fish’s visit, he’d decided to forego the court-appointed attorney. Fish met his gaze when he walked past, telegraphing solidarity. Just his presence fortified Cal.

  The judge entered, his black robe crumpled like it had resurrected from a laundry basket seconds ago, and took his seat.

  A water pitcher and two Styrofoam cups sweated on a table in front of Cal.

  He wasn’t sure whether he heard or just sensed movement in the back of the room, but the hair on the back of his neck stood up.

  When he turned slightly, he saw Aly slip into the last row.

  A light saber of pain sliced through him, and he averted his face before she looked up. She, of all people, he didn’t want to see him in prisoner restraints.

  She’d said she went with him to turn himself in so he didn’t have to do it alone. But he hadn’t considered her showing up today.

  The judge looked over his half-glasses at Cal. “I have a letter from your mother suggesting a religious-based drug rehabilitation program. Do you want to go to rehab?”

  Cal’s voice boomed loud in the silent courtroom. “No, sir. I do not.”

  He could almost feel his mother’s disapproval shooting darts into his back. But he honestly didn’t think he was addicted. He’d been clean for weeks now. It was a gamble. He could pull a sentence longer than the thirteen month rehab program. But after the conversation with Fish, he decided it was a risk worth taking.

  The judge rattled on about rehab not being effective when the person didn’t want it. “There’s an offer on the table for you to wear a wire and do drug buys in exchange for a commuted sentence.”

  Shock coursed through his body. The possibility of walking out the back doors free ricocheted around his head. Wearing a wire—

  Fish put a hand on his shoulder, and he turned his head to hear what Fish had to say.

  “They’re going to want you to wear a wire so they can get your suppliers.” Fish whispered. “Is that what you want?”

  “It was Henna and Leaf’s weed in the first place,” He whispered back.

  “That’s what I guessed.” Fish thumped his spine against the back of his seat and crossed his arms.

  The room seemed to hold its breath, except for the judge who wore an expression that said his patience waiting for Cal to answer had nearly run out.

  Cal cleared his throat. “No thank you, sir.”

  Maybe he heard a sigh of relief, maybe he imagined it.

  The judge focused a stern parental stare on Cal. “Since you can’t manage to keep your appointments with your probation officer, I sentence you to serve three months at the Volusia County Correctional Facility—at which time your sentence will be considered served in full with probation no longer necessary.” His gavel smacked the sounding block.

  For a second or two he sat in dumbfounded warmth. When he turned into Fish’s backslap and looked for Aly, she’d gone.

  Cal leaned his metal chair back on two legs and drummed the top of his pen on the blank sheet of paper resting on a People magazine on his thigh. Projections for the Daytona 500 droned on the jail TV. What he should say to Aly--That he was a total fuck-up and she should go find someone better—he couldn’t make himself write.

  I’m sorry….

  Where to start? The list could go on for days.

  …I took my anger out on you. You were only doing what you thought was best for me.

  Three months was far better than the five years he’d feared, but like being stung by a man o’war, who could think about the duration while the tentacles were embedded in your skin?

  I’m sorry I took the Escape. It’s yours. I should have left it. I panicked.

  The business tanked. You can’t run it without me. Sell the boat. Use the profit to start the business you always dreamed of. It’s the least I can do after you sunk your savings into the Escape and quit your job.

  It was time for him to take a page from Fish’s book—get a day job, save money to go to college at night, make a life.

  I meant what I said after we burned Henna’s garden. I’m done smoking.

  I’m sorry for the pain I’ve caused you.

  For what it’s worth, I will always love you,

  Cal

  He sketched Aly reading his letter sitting at her breakfast bar. Beneath the counter, he drew the kitchen garbage can where she should toss it.

  Chapter 24

  February 14

  Like a kid tagged in freeze tag, my arm halts in mid-air. The work cries for that one last brushstroke. But I can’t do it. Not yet. I don’t know when I’ll be ready. I don’t care how long I have to walk around the easel, stubbing my toes on it. The last stroke could be the one that makes it a masterpiece or a tragedy.

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

  Fish handed Aly’s last box to her through the companionway. It was a stroke of luck that Aly was moving aboard on Valentine’s Day. He’d ask her to hang out later, keep his mind off the just-friends he and Missy had agreed on. “When are you opening your gallery?”

  She dropped into the built-in seat behind its laptop-sized desk. “End of the month after the closing on my condo. I need the money from the sale for capital.” She looked up at him. “Cal did me a favor getting me to quit my job. I don’t know if I would have taken the leap to start my own business.”

  “Cal living here when he gets out?”

  Aly shrugged and pulled a well-creased piece of paper with handwriting on it from the back pocket of her jeans. She handed it to him through the companionway.

  He read the letter in Cal’s familiar scrawl. Cal’s despair clawed at his gut. So, Cal had finally told Aly he loved her. Fish handed the page back to Aly. “How do you feel about what he said?”

  Aly bit down on her lip, holding back tears. She drew in a shaky breath. “I love Cal. But I need a guy who’s stable, not a pothead, not a flight risk. My dad abandoned me when I was a kid. It nearly killed me that Cal planned on running away, never seeing me again. He would have gone through with it if I hadn’t talked him out of it. I don’t know what to do about Cal.” Wetness filled up her eyes and she blinked it away.

  He climbed down the ladder. “I’m stable.” He grinned. “Let’s go to Ocean’s Seafood—talk about life, forget it’s Valentine’s Day.”

  “I’ve always had a soft spot for you, Fish. You’re like a brother.”

  “Yeah, I get that a lot.”

  “Call Missy. I wouldn’t be good company. Anyway, I have to unpack and I’ve only got two weeks to put my entire business together.”

  “Missy’s probably got six guys from her man file lined up to take her out.”

  “You won’t know if you don’t call.”

  Five hours later Fish’s truck rolled across the gravel driveway in front of Missy’s house. He’d finally come up with a non-date idea to spend time with her. But walking up to the back door, his chest tightened and his pulse sped up. He ran a hand over his shower-damp hair. Seeing her on Valentine’s Day was a mistake.

  They’d texted almost daily since the sail, talked a few times, but backpedaling into friendship when you’d already made out with a girl was as tricky as extracting a hook from the lip of a mackerel. He couldn’t keep making out with Missy, not when she gunned for producing the next generation—and he was plain gun shy.

  He rapped a knuckle on the door he’d entered a thousand times without knocking.

  Missy swung it open. Her throaty, “Hey,” wrapped around him and pulled him into the kitchen.

  His eyes feasted on the sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks, the way the light glinted off her curls, the brown of her eyes. “Hey, yourself.” How had he stayed away for two weeks? He inhaled orange blossoms as he walked past her, clenching his hands to keep from reaching for her.

  He was going to have to grow some restraint or he couldn’t let himself spend time
with her at all. He pulled out a chair and slid Missy’s laptop in front of him. “Are your folks around?”

  Missy took the chair beside him. “Out to dinner.”

  So what if they were alone. He could do this. He powered up the computer, typed in Biblegateway.com, forgiveness in the search box. “We’re going to find something to erase your shame and the crap load of stuff I wish I never did.”

  “I didn’t know if you were serious that morning on the boat.”

  Twenty-five verses later, he kneed her thigh and read the words on the screen, “… And you forgave the guilt of my sin.’ ”

  Missy leaned her head back and closed her eyes.

  He watched her, letting his leg fall against hers.

  Missy’s eyes opened and locked with his, and for a second he forced himself to let her look inside him as he peered into her.

  “Yeah, this is helping. Thanks.” She licked her lips.

  His gaze followed the path of her tongue, and he crossed half the distance between them before he realized he was about to complete their connection. “Sorry.” What happened to parents protecting their daughters’ virtue? He scraped his chair back, the sound loud in the silence. “You said kissing me set you back six months.”

  Missy’s eyes darted around the room. Her cheeks pinked.

  He grinned. “I was that good?”

  Missy eyed him. “You’ve had a lot of practice.”

  “Only my share.”

  “Maybe I’m the one who’s the good kisser.”

  He lifted his hands. “No complaints here.” If it were up to him, he’d make out with her every chance he got. But that wasn’t fair to her if he didn’t plan to marry her.

  Tires rolled across the gravel outside, and their gazes stilled until Starr and Jackson walked in.