I glance across the table and there’s Dane’s sly grin spreading wider.
Fuck him.
“Heather,” I announce a little too eagerly and she eyes me while placing the tray of food next to the table.
Thank God for the distraction.
We each eat our meal, the conversation moving to Nina and Polly’s nearby town of Wet Rock and how most of the downtown is starting to close. The town’s been on a decline the last few years and they haven’t gotten a lot of younger people to take over the businesses. So, as the older generation retires, there’s no one to keep the businesses going. As much as Polly annoys the shit out of me, I can’t help feeling for them. It’s something that could’ve happened to Climax Cove if I hadn’t have taken over my dad’s company and if Dane didn’t take over Happy Daze.
My stomach growls as I look down at the slippery oysters sitting on their shells. I plop some cocktail sauce and horseradish on top and my fingers are around the rough shell bringing it to my lips. At least I’ll enjoy this tonight.
Flash.
My eyes blink a few times and then Polly’s phone is in my face.
“Our first meeting,” she’s practically bouncing up and down on the chair like an overexcited toddler who got to skip dinner and move straight to the ice cream.
My hands leave the shell and I wipe them on the napkin that rests on my lap as I take the phone from her. It’s us. Well, her smiling face but me on the other hand, I have one of my eyes closed and my lips are pressed in a tight line. I look like an asshole in the picture, but that’s not what bothers me.
What has me wanting to make like a banana and split is the fact that there are stickers or some shit over our faces. On the bottom of the picture it says, ‘Just Married’ with a bouquet of flowers. She’s got some veil on top of her head and I have a bow tie.
“We can show this on the big day to prove that we knew immediately where this was leading,” she whispers in my ear.
My hand moves for my Rusty Nail, finding the glass empty except for a few waterlogged drops mixed in with the ice cubes. I grab Dane’s beer and he tilts his head but asks no questions.
He should be lucky I’m still here. If this was his date and she was about to post some picture of them getting married, he’d have jumped off the balcony and into the Pacific never to be heard from again.
I cough, and chug down the rest of his beer, saying nothing and making a mental note to find a way to return the favor back to Dane. My revenge will be sweet.
Nine
Caterina
I unbutton my shorts and strip down to take a shower after the long day at camp. One thing about being outside all day is the amount of dirt embedded into your skin when you leave. My mom thought I was crazy when I told her I was going to be a camp counselor for the summer.
“Oh, Cat, you’ll be outside all day. If you want to be around kids why don’t you be a nanny?”
A nanny.
So, I could transport kids to tennis, swim, horseback riding and any other extracurricular activity? No thanks. If that were the case, I’d be the nanny for my older sister, Tahlia.
No, I wanted to come to the camp to teach kids about art. To watch them fall in love with exploring your feelings and emotions with crayons, paint and whatever their little imaginations can conjure up. I saw it as a way to pay back my mentor, Mrs. Quinton. Surely, one summer spent without progressing my career isn’t horrible. The studios will still be there this fall, looking for new talent.
I turn the shower on, but I catch sight of some string on the tiled bathroom floor.
The bracelet.
Lily’s bracelet.
After we got home from camp, Charlie went to the Happy Daze to work her shift and Ava’s been baking up a storm in the kitchen. I immediately went where I always go.
The balcony outside my room where my easel and canvases are. As the sun fell from the sky and disappeared behind the edge of the ocean, my hands frantically tried to capture the magic in that moment.
I was never a sunset or sunrise type of girl. My pieces are usually more abstract and up for interpretation, but there’s something about Climax Cove. I haven’t been able to stop painting the town and the landscapes since I arrived.
With my view from my small corner balcony, I see the friendly people and small children running along the edge of the water fountain in the middle of town, the boats that come in for daily shipments, and the tourists who park their boats in the marina and stay for a few days. The fisherman with their waterlogged pants and gruff beards are a daily occurrence as they step on dry land after a day spent at sea, catching the best seafood this side of the Pacific. It’s all been an inspiration of new material that I can’t seem to get my fill of.
I’m a little fearful that coming to Climax Cove ruined me. I’ve done nothing but hotel art for the past two weeks. And hotel art isn’t going to sell in New York. My edge is disappearing to be replaced by a dime a dozen starving artist pieces. Not good for an up-and-coming artist.
I pick up the bracelet and weave it through my fingers remembering how Lily would run her little fingertips along it and check periodically to make sure it was there. It’s obvious that the few frayed strands of yarn and beads are something she holds dear.
Without thinking much about it, I turn off the water, step into my shorts and camp t-shirt once again. Checking my cell phone, I find it’s just before eight. My fingers move across my screen, googling the name Marcus Kent and Climax Cove, but nothing comes up.
Maybe Lily can go without the bracelet for one night. I mean, it’s only a bracelet, right? A bracelet I noticed her touch several times throughout the day whenever she seemed shy or uncomfortable.
My teeth clench and my jaw tightens. Damn it to hell. Why does it have to be Marcus Kent’s daughter?
Screw him, I can face his smug know-it-all hot as fuck face. After all, he thinks I don’t remember him and that case of instant amnesia I gave myself has worked swimmingly so far.
I open the bathroom door and the steam from my hot shower follows me into the hallway. The aroma of something sweet grows in intensity the closer I get to the kitchen. Once I enter, I smile, watching Ava bent over the oven, taking out a tray of cupcakes. There are bowls and spatulas, flour, sugar, eggs and butter on every surface of the counter and you’d think Pillsbury just invaded our house.
Her finger presses one of the cupcakes and a giddiness rings from her throat before she pulls them out completely.
“So delicious,” she says to herself and with the tray in her hand, she turns from the oven and looks up. “Fuck!” she screams, dropping the tray. It lands half on the counter, starts to slide and then slips off and onto the floor.
“I’m so sorry, Ava!” I run over to help her.
She’s already picking them up and placing them back in the tray. “You scared the shit out of me. Do you enjoy sneaking up on people?” she asks, her voice a little bitter.
I pick up the cupcakes and place them in the pan. I’m sure they are fine to eat. I mean Ava is a germaphobe to the max and she probably Mr. Clean’d the entire kitchen before she even started baking.
“I was just going to ask you something,” I say, embarrassed that when I ask the question, she’ll know who I was talking about earlier today.