The Men of Laguna

by Kim Karr

  Chastising myself for even listening to Maggie, and forever considering joining the Mile High Club, I feel like I want to cry, which is stupid.

  I.

  Will.

  Never.

  See.

  Him.

  Again.

  The speaker crackles and the pilot’s voice booms through the open space. “Cabin crew, prepare for landing.”

  Sighing, I avert my gaze and then ever so quietly buckle my seat belt and pray that the sound doesn’t disturb him. I can’t take another “I’m sorry” or “Are you sure you’re okay?”

  Soon enough, the plane starts to descend and my stomach drops. I find myself digging my nails into the armrest so tightly that my knuckles are turning white.

  He was right.

  And right now I have this odd feeling. I wish I were sitting next to him, listening to the sound of his caramel-like voice as he reads to me.

  No. No. No, I tell myself, and I know I’m right. I don’t need a man in my life, and definitely not a stranger who fucks for a hobby.

  At 37,000 feet in the air, everything still feels like a haze of white fluffiness, but then the lights from the landscape below start to become clearer and so does my mind.

  I’m about to start something new.

  And it’s exciting.

  Looking out the window in anticipation, I know there are adventures waiting for me here. I’ve visited Laguna Beach many times with Maggie through the years, but this is different. This will be me, making a new life, in a new city.

  I’m so ready.

  As soon as the plane lands, the pilot’s voice comes over the speakers again. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to John Wayne Airport. The temperature is sixty-four degrees…” He continues giving us information, but I tune it out. I just want to get off this plane.

  Atypical of my normal airplane behavior, I stand up immediately after the plane stops, open the bin over him, over Cam, without glancing down, and as soon as the door opens, I bolt out of it.

  “Hey, wait.” Cam is calling after me.

  He doesn’t even know my name, or that I know his, and I have to be okay with that.

  He’s a stranger.

  A random almost screw.

  And I will never see him again.

  I have to be okay with that.

  I say it to myself one more time so that maybe I’ll believe it.

  After all, that’s the way it is.

  8

  Love thy Neighbor

  Makayla

  There aren’t that many people in the arrival terminal.

  In fact, it’s somewhat quiet. Then again, it is one of the last flights of the day.

  Walking fast, then faster still, I practically sprint in my wedges so that Cam doesn’t catch up with me. The floor is recently polished and a bit slick, so my high school track skills are a little slowed, but as soon as I come upon the first restroom, I duck into it.

  Drawing breath after breath to remain calm and steady, I lock myself inside a stall and lean against the chilly metal until the threat of tears passes. Then I stand in front of the mirror. Staring at my reflection, I give myself an assessing gaze. Smudged mascara against pale skin. Naturally light-brown hair more kinky than wavy. Splotchy cheeks and a colorless mouth. All of this is the aftermath of a woman ravaged—swollen lips, messy hair, flushed cheeks.

  Maggie is going to see it a mile away.

  To combat the almost-just-fucked image, I splash water on my face, smooth my hair, wipe under my eyes, dab on a little lip gloss, and powder my face.

  There, much better.

  Not really.

  Done trying to improve what only a shower can fix, I contemplate going out there.

  Women come and go while I pace the wash area and wait and wait and wait until I think it’s safe. Until I think Cam has passed by the security gate and gone into the main terminal. By the size of his duffle, I doubt he has luggage, so I won’t have to worry about seeing him in baggage claim.

  Convinced the coast must be clear, I step out of the restroom and head for the main terminal, where I will proceed directly to the baggage claim. The plan is for me to text Maggie once I get my luggage and that she’ll pull her car up to the curb to get me.

  As soon as I reach the terminal, I see her. So much for my plan to save time. She’s standing beside the John Wayne statue, talking to someone. I can’t see who it is. Still, she’s not hard to miss. Tall, blond, and beautiful. Even though my plan has been aborted, I smile to myself. I’m happy she’s waiting for me. She doesn’t see me, though. I should surprise her.

  Slowing my steps, I freeze when I get a little closer.

  Oh.

  My.

  God.

  The person she’s talking to is Cam.

  No.

  No.

  No.

  This isn’t happening.

  He really is a manwhore. Trying to pick up a girl at an airport. How completely lame.

  Just as I’m about to turn and run in the other direction to wait for Maggie to reject him, he starts walking away from her. That was fast. Then again, he’s so not her type. Or the Cam from the plane isn’t, anyway. The one from last night is more her style. As flexible as she is, she always goes for the suits. Unable to see the rejection on his face, I watch that long, lean body disappear down the escalator toward the parking garage.

  It is just as the top of Cam’s head disappears that the screech echoes in the large space. “Maakaayylaaa!” Maggie yells and comes rushing toward me. Her long blond hair is parted down the center and flaps against her loose, flowing silk top. Wearing one white and one black Converse sneaker, she moves like the wind in her short-shorts. Seeing her in her quirky getup makes all my worries melt away.

  Maggie has this thing: she hates to match. No, wait—actually, she thinks matching is putting pieces together that don’t match. Stripes with polka dots. Studded boots with frilly dresses. High heels with casual shorts. Leather and lace. She’s a fashion merchandiser with her own sense of style. Sadly, not many approve, which is why she was fired from almost every major boutique in SoHo and is now a lifeguard.

  “Maaggiiee!” I scream back, not caring who sees me or what they think.

  Running toward each other the way you might see in a movie, soon enough we’re hugging and squeezing each other.

  Maggie pulls back and looks me over. “I can’t believe you’re here. You look great.”

  Smiling at her, I take a moment to catch my breath. “I’m here. I’m really here.”

  “You’re not going to regret it. I promise you. In fact, I already have our day planned out.”

  I laugh. “You made a plan?”

  She grabs my hand and heads toward the escalator. “Yes, I did. Maybe I want to be a little like you,” she says proudly.

  Hmmm…like me. Oddly enough, that makes me smile.

  “I took the whole day off,” she tells me. “We’re going to go home and sleep. Once we wake up, I’ll help you unpack, because I know you won’t rest until your things are organized. Once that is done, we’re going to spend the rest of the day on the beach. And then later we’ll have dinner with Derek.”

  Stepping on the escalator toward the baggage area, I look over my shoulder at her. “Derek? You’re seeing someone?”

  “I’m not sure what you’d call it. We haven’t labeled it yet.”

  “And when did you meet this Derek?”

  She gets that dreamy look in her eye. “Just last week. We’re not serious, but I really like him. He owns a surf shop in the village, and he and his business partner loved your bracelets and necklaces. They want to talk to you about selling them.”

  I step off the escalator and look for my designated baggage claim belt. “Wow. Wow,” I repeat.

  Maggie follows on my heels. “You’re not mad, are you?”

  Abruptly, I turn to face her. “About you seeing someone? No, why would I be? I’m happy for you.”

  “No, not about that. You know
I change men more often than I change my toothbrush. I’m talking about me showing Derek your work. The boxes arrived when he was over one day, and I knew he’d love your stuff. The gemstones are incredible. And I was right—he does love them.”

  Spotting my assigned luggage belt, I grab her hand. “But you said he owns a surf shop.”

  Her long strides are faster than mine. “Which carousel is your luggage going to be on?”

  I point to number five. “That one.”

  Slowing her pace, she looks over at me. “He does own a surf shop, but he sells apparel and one-of-a-kind jewelry pieces as well. He thinks he could sell out of what you already sent in two weeks’ time.”

  Four very large, lone black suitcases with bright tags are all that remains on the belt. “You’re kidding me.”

  Her eyes are glued to the belt. “No, I’m not. And please don’t tell me those are all yours.”

  I give her one of my you know me smiles. “Yes, they are.”

  She sees my face and laughs. “Makayla, they are not going to fit in my little car.”

  “Sure they will—they have to. After all, your surfboard does.”

  She’s shaking her head. “That gets strapped to the top.”

  “Then we’ll strap them to the top if we have to,” I tell her.

  Her snort worries me. “Relax. We’ll figure something out.”

  My freak-out is something she’s used to. “No. No. No. We won’t figure something out. We’ll do it. We have to. What’s left of my life is in these bags.”

  I mailed everything I could ahead of time, including most of my clothing and shoes. Yes, I have a lot of those. Luckily, I didn’t have to pay for most of them. Working at KVF had its advantages. The sample closet was open for employees at the end of every season. And I stocked up.

  Other things precious to me are also in these suitcases. Memories of my mother, things I’ve collected over the years, my journals, my lists, my tool kits. And yes, my last raid of the sample closet on my final day.

  Maggie grips my shoulders and her big blue eyes stare into my hazel ones. “You’re right; we’ll make it work. We always do.”

  Relieved, I feel like I can breathe again.

  And then together we hoist the suitcases off the belt, moving with them until we have all four beside us. Once we’ve loaded them onto a luggage cart, we start walking toward the parking garage.

  I bite my tongue. My original plan of her pulling her compact BMW X1 luxury SUV up to the curb would have been much easier.

  Two elevator rides later, we’re in short-term parking and taking turns pushing the load to her car. It’s Maggie’s turn, and while I was huffing and puffing the entire way up the inclined slope of the garage on my turn, she’s pushing it effortlessly.

  Lifeguarding has gotten her in awesome shape.

  Beyond ready to ask the question, I can’t hold off any longer. “Hey, was that guy talking to you earlier trying to pick you up?”

  Her head darts in my direction. “You mean the guy I was talking to in the terminal just before I saw you?”

  “Yes, him,” I answer. “The hot, tall, dark-haired one in the worn jeans.” The words just come out. I didn’t mean to be so descriptive.

  She lets out a comically long exhale. “No, that’s Cam Waters. We work together. I would have asked him to wait around to meet you, but he had already told me he had to hurry because he had to get to work to open.”

  I am finding it hard to breathe.

  This isn’t happening.

  Struck stupefied, I stop walking for a moment and try to comprehend what she just said. When I can lift my jaw off the floor, I catch up with her and feel the need to clarify. “Wait. You know him?”

  Completely oblivious to my torment, Maggie continues to roll the cart. With her key fob in her hand, she pops her trunk as we approach her car.

  I am frozen in place.

  Then she stops and looks at me. Maggie is perceptive. Nothing gets by her. With a raised brow, she says, “I think the question is—how do you know him?”

  The wine I had drunk so many hours ago feels like it is sloshing unpleasantly in my belly and I can’t answer her.

  That doesn’t seem to bother her. “Do you know him from New York?”

  Slowly, I shake my head no and walk toward her. Though technically speaking, I guess I do.

  Maggie takes a step and we’re standing near each other. “Did you two meet?”

  I nod, and no matter how hard I try, I can’t cover my shocked reaction.

  Her speculative gaze locks on mine. “Did you…Was he…on the same plane with you?”

  Not watching where I’m going, I almost walk right into a car. “Yes, he was,” I tell her, my voice so low it’s more like a squeak.

  Sweeping all of this under a rug would be a great idea. Why, oh, why does my best friend have to be so perceptive? “Anndd?” she draws out.

  A flush washes over me, and in the bright lights of the garage there is no hiding it.

  Her eyes widen like two blue full moons. “Oh, my God, did you join the Mile High Club with Cam Waters?”

  From there, I go on autopilot. I turn away and yank one of the suitcases off the cart. “No, not exactly.”

  She steps in front of me and puts a halt to my movements. “Stop what you’re doing right now and spill it, Alexander.”

  I skitter past her and haul another suitcase off the cart. “I first saw him last night at the club…”

  By the time I finish telling her about last night, her shocked reaction is priceless. She can barely talk. “You…Wait…You watched…”

  Making a show of it, I nod slowly. “And then I saw him again today on the plane, but at the time I didn’t know it was him.”

  “No, wait, go back. You watched a guy getting a blow job?”

  “I already told you I did.”

  She flings her arms around me. “I’m so proud of you. And you are so not uptight anymore.”

  Maybe just my attempt has cured me. I do kind of feel like my old self already. I was never as wild and free as Maggie, but I’d had my share of fun and adventures.

  Breaking her hold, I focus on the size of her car and the cubic feet of suitcases. This is going to be ugly.

  It takes us almost twenty minutes to get all four suitcases in the car. Only two of them fit in the trunk, and luckily one just barely fit in the backseat, but the other one had to be bungee-corded to the top. Neither of us is certain it isn’t going to fall off during the thirty-minute drive south.

  I can see it now, my most flamboyant panties flying through the air. Oh, there goes the leopard print and the zebra, too. All I can do is pray everything holds tight.

  It takes me much longer to tell her everything about Cam than it did to load the car. We’re in the car on the 73 by the time I finally finish my story. And my anxiety level has increased tenfold knowing that she knows him. That they work together. That there’s a chance I might see him again.

  “Damn,” she says, “the universe is fucking with you. Twice in as many days. That’s crazy.”

  The sun is still hours away from rising, but the sky is the most beautiful shade of purple, and I find myself once again looking out into the night. “No, I’m the crazy one for even attempting something like that, and with a guy like him.”

  She sighs. “I honestly don’t know what to say. He’s not a dick. In fact, he’s a nice guy.”

  Still staring out the window, I jerk my head toward her, appalled. “Did you hear anything that I told you? The blow job in the bar last night with whomever he was with, the way he treated her, and then the almost bathroom fucking with me. He’s anything but a nice guy, Mags.”

  A weighted silence falls between us and neither of us looks at the other. “I know him pretty well, Makayla,” she finally says. “Sure, he screws around once in a while, but nothing like his roommate. Now Brooklyn James, he’s a true man-slut.”

  My head whips in her direction and my stomach takes another tu
rn for the worse. “Wait! Isn’t Brooklyn the guy you told me about who starred in that MTV show, Chasing the Sun?”

  Her hands are gripping the wheel pretty tightly. “Yeah, that’s him. He’s Cam’s best friend from New York, Keen Masters’, younger brother, or half brother, I think. I’m not really sure how that situation goes.”

  My pulse starts pounding. My ears begin to ring. There’s no air in this car. I’m not quite sure I can breathe. Once I open the window, I turn in her direction. “Maggie?”

  She looks over at me with a smirk on her face. “Yes, Makayla?”

  The devil in two different Converse sneakers is whom I’m narrowing my gaze on. “Doesn’t Brooklyn live next door to you?”

  As if all innocence, she nods. “Yeah, and Cam, too. I told you about them. Remember?”

  My eyes narrow. “I remember you telling me all about Brooklyn and how he decided to give himself a year to figure his life out after he graduated from UCLA. You told me he was trying to write a screenplay. That he wants to work behind the camera, not in front of it. You told me a lot about him. But you never mentioned he had a roommate.”

  She shrugs. “I could have sworn I did. Cam moved in almost six months ago. Like I said, he’s cool. We hang out all the time.”

  Staring over at her in complete disbelief, I am struck mute.

  Cam is her neighbor, which now makes him my neighbor.

  My neighbor.

  They hang out!

  Oh, shit.

  9

  Table for Four

  Makayla

  To see it in person is like seeing it for the first time.

  The little tropical-themed bungalow that belonged to Maggie’s grandmother has been transformed into a beautiful, sophisticated beach home. The flamingo wallpaper is gone and the once mauve walls are all painted a stark white, which sets off the dark furniture perfectly. The matching pink carpets of the nineties have been pulled up to reveal beautiful hardwood floors.

  Right on Pacific Coast Highway, and a block from the heart of the Village, this place is beyond magnificent. Situated on a street-to-beach lot, a double carport now occupies the empty space we used to play in as kids and provides a little privacy from the road. The old garage that served as the front of the house has been demolished and replaced with an extended outdoor living space downstairs and a new bedroom and bath upstairs, complete with a balcony overlooking the town and a small side window looking toward the water.