Hydraulic Level Five (1) (31 page)

He smiled back and mouthed, “I’m sorry.”

I nodded, settled into my lawn chair and let the cool morning air wake me. Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I studied both Samuel and Caroline more closely. He had gone for his early morning run, despite our late night. She, however, had forgone careful makeup and posh clothing for an oversized, slate-gray warm-up, glowing skin and knit cap. Caro was one of those “I’m pretty and I don’t even have to try” people. I struggled to figure out why she owned such ill-sized clothing when it hit me. It wasn’t hers.

It was Samuel’s.

Breakfast didn’t seem appetizing, now.

Caroline handed me a mug of coffee. For a moment I warred with myself, very aware of Samuel’s eyes on me. And I needed coffee, desperately. I took the mug from her manicured hands, muttering a thank you.

She nodded. I closed my eyes, focusing on the strong, woodsy fragrance and not on the couple across from me.

“So, Kaye, you and Samuel have played guitar for a long time, I understand.” Her voice was much too shrill for morning conversation.

“Yes, that’s right.” Keep the answers short, polite.

“You’ve been playing since you were what—eight?”

I sighed, setting my mug of coffee down. Woman couldn’t just let me enjoy my coffee in peace. “No, I believe I was nine.”

“I’m pretty sure you were eight, because you decided you wanted to play guitars when you went to your first Rocky Mountain Folks, correct? And you learned on a pink guitar? You were eight and Samuel was eleven.”

“No, I believe I was
nine
.”

Samuel put a hand over Caroline’s, probably a silent warning that I was about to rip out her throat. She ignored him and gave me a patronizing smile.

“You were eight, and you decided to play after seeing the Tripping Maggies.”

“I was
nine
. The band was the Tripping
Marys
. And my
banjo
was pink, not my guitar.” I narrowed my eyes at Samuel. Why had he told Caro all this personal stuff about me?

He rose from his chair, trying to diffuse the bomb. “Caro, let’s walk over to the crick?”

She shook her head, beaming in triumph. I braced myself for her kill. “I can’t wait for Planet Bluegrass.”

The tears I’d repressed last night with Herculean strength tromped back to my eyes and refused to budge. My temper warred with immense gloom. I set my coffee mug on the grass, pressed fingers to my eyes, and took a deep breath.
Relax, Kaye, relax. If you fling the coffee in her face, that’s assault. You don’t need a criminal record.

“No, I was
nine
when I started playing the guitar. What Samuel has probably failed to mention to you in his detailed account of my life is that my birthday is in September—just weeks after Rocky Mountain Folks. So the next time you decide to flaunt your in-depth knowledge of my childhood, be sure you have your facts straight.”

I stared at my toes, unable to watch their reaction to my outburst. Jerking on my sneakers, I sought refuge on the wooded trail to clear my head.

How
dare
he betray me like that? But betrayal was nothing new for Samuel, was it? My tender memories had been exposed, violated by this wretched woman. How much did she actually know about me? How much had Samuel told her?

I shoved my way through the trees and wandered off the path, not caring the low-lying bushes and bramble scraped and snagged my clothing and ankles.

He was taking her to Planet Bluegrass, this unworthy, manipulative person who’d insinuated herself not only into his present life, but our past. Our Planet Bluegrass. I swiped angry tears from my eyes before they tumbled over. I knew I’d suggested he take her to Planet Bluegrass when she attended Danita’s shower, but I didn’t think he’d actually do it.

Somewhere behind me, trees and bushes rustled loudly as a second set of feet trampled through them, and I heard Samuel call my name. Crap, he’d followed me. I veered to the right in a last ditch effort to lose him, but he already had me.

“Kaye, will you slow down instead of running away from me?” He caught my elbow. I yanked it away.

“I’m not the one who ran, Samuel.” I whisked away tears with grimy hands.

“You’re running now. For once in your life will you just yell at me, or hit me, or show me how infuriated you are instead of hiding it?”

I rounded on him, jabbing my finger in his chest. “Fine! You want to be friends, Samuel? Well let’s get one thing straight, right here, right now, you self-righteous
cabrón
. Don’t you ever tell that woman anything about me again, do you understand?”

“Kaye, she’s my editor, my publicist…It’s not like she hasn’t been hearing about you for years.”

“I don’t care if she’s the fricking CIA. Starting now, not a word to her about me, or we’re done. I’ll not have her flinging personal details in my face like the pink banjo or Planet Bluegrass, even if you consider them trivial.”

He shook his head. “They aren’t trivial at all.”

“Not a word to her.”

“Kaye, I’m a writer—”

I turned to leave.

He caught my elbow again. “Wait! What if I had your permission first? Let’s say you read what I write and sign off on it before I send it to Caroline for editing. Anything you don’t want her to read, I won’t give to her. How would you feel about that?”

I started to scoff at the idea, but paused. This would certainly give me some power over the floozy. And Samuel had never offered to let me read his drafts
before
he completed them, preferring to present a perfected, error-free copy. Would he really let me read his work-in-progress stories?

Then his words struck me like a boxing glove. Wait. Wait a second. Is he writing about me again?

“Samuel,” I said through clenched teeth, “what exactly have you been writing about? Isn’t
Water Sirens
finished?”

Streaks of red crept up his neck as he realized his mistake. He
was
writing about me! Mother cliff-hucker! And if his stories included my pink banjo, it was the
real
me, not some stupid mythological nixie heroine.

I spun around and stalked back to the campsite, angry fists pumping at my sides. Samuel was immediately next to me.

“Kaye, please. Yes, I’m writing about us—a memoir of sorts. Our story, when we were kids. But I’m not publishing it,” he explained breathlessly. “And I planned to let you read it once it was cleaned up and edited, I swear.”

“Then why are you writing it if you don’t intend to publish it?”

He went quiet. The only sound was our quick breath and the rustle of tall grass as we pushed our way through the forest.

“Because I don’t want to forget,” he finally answered.

“Forget what?” I broke through the trees and scurried onto the trail. He followed on my heels.

“Forget
us
. Every day, more details disappear. Little things, like the color of the dress you wore on your fourteenth birthday, or the first song we learned on our guitars. Every day, you slip farther and farther away from me.”

“You made the choice to leave, Samuel. At Button Rock I asked you, point blank, if it was worth it. And you couldn’t even give me a straight answer!” I frantically scrambled over a dead tree, trying to lose him. Still, he kept pace.

“
Por Dios,
Kaye, will you stop
running?
Yes, I chose to leave. And no, it wasn’t worth it, because I don’t think that either one of us is happy, are we?”

I pushed a low-hanging branch out of the way. It swung back and thwacked Samuel in the face.

“Ow!” He doubled over, hands flying to his nose. “Shit, shit,
shit!”
he cried painfully, his eyes watering. Blood began to seep between his fingers.

Horror at what I’d done swept over me and I flew to his side, easing him to his knees as I crouched next to him. “Oh, Samuel, I’m so, so sorry. Is it bleeding badly?”

“I dunno,” he said nasally. “Sorry for the swearing.”

Only Samuel would apologize for cussing when he was in pain. Prying his fingers away, I gingerly touched the deep cut on the bridge of his nose. No breaks, thank goodness, but he’d need a couple of butterfly stitches from the first aid kit. I pressed my cuff over his injury to clot the blood, wiping away the stream of red trickling down the inside of his cheek.

After several minutes he exhaled. “Isn’t that your favorite sweater—the one your grandma made?” His voice was muffled by my ruined sleeve.

“Yeah,” I admitted.

Grasping my hands in his, he rolled my blood-soaked cuff back until it wasn’t visible. Then he leaned his forehead against mine, his sad, perceptive eyes so close, they blurred and doubled in my vision.

“Kaye, this is why I’m writing.” His voice was weary, resigned, as if he’d just lost a long, brutal battle. “I’m scared—no, terrified—to forget this.
Us.
I need to get it down on paper before it’s too late, and those little details are completely gone from my mind. I don’t want to lose them. Tell me it isn’t the same for you, and I’ll leave you alone.”

Tears gathered in my eyes. I knew what he was feeling. I was terrified to forget, too. I had my photo albums, my memories, my family and friends to remind me. And still, I’d forgotten May twenty-third—his birthday.

The photo of us as children on his laptop. The graduation picture. The Friday lunches. The draft about Planet Bluegrass. Even Caroline’s callous, cruel remarks about how Samuel cared only for my thirteen-year-old self told me he was being truthful—he was writing to remember. Well, maybe he did care more about our childhood than our present. So be it. But dang it, that thirteen-year-old girl was still inside this twenty-seven-year-old woman’s body, somewhere. And if he cared about that little girl, then he
had
to care about the woman she’d grown in to.

My forehead dropped to his shoulder, and I leaned into him. He was my fury and my comfort. Familiar arms, circling me. This heartbeat thudding against my skin when I’d rest my cheek on his chest, now pulsing rapidly beneath his sternum. I knew,
I knew
, I couldn’t live without it.

“My dress was cream with sprigs of burgundy flowers. The first song we learned was—and I can’t believe you don’t remember this, it’s deliciously ironic—‘Paperback Writer.’ It was very watered down and only had three chords, and we really sucked.” I exhaled, breathing mint into his neck.

“Kaye?” His voice was a whisper, as if he were afraid to destroy the frail threads being spun between us, stitching us back together.

I understood what my decision had to be. I’d already made it long ago, when I was four years old. Yes, there was the pile of lies we both had to sift through. There was a world of hurt to be dealt with, namely the betrayals of New York. But we could work through that together as friends, couldn’t we?

“I’ll try to be your friend, Samuel.” I pulled away from him, meeting his cloudless eyes. “And I’ll screen your drafts before they go to Caroline, only because I don’t want to forget, either. We can start after Danita and Angel’s wedding. But, so help me, if you ever try to publish it I will—”

He didn’t give me a chance to finish my threat. Rather, he pulled me into a tight embrace that forced the air out of my lungs. His fingers burrowed into my hair, his chin came to rest on the top of my head. He pressed his lips there, warm and soft.

“I’ll do everything I can to ensure you don’t regret this,” he breathed into my hair. “I promise.”

“I know you will.”

I felt the corners of his mouth turn up. “So, are you up for Rocky Mountain Folks this year? Just you and me?”

“Yeah. You and me.” I sighed against him, knowing I’d just placed my heart back on the chopping block.

Chapter 15: Roostertail

When the current hits an underwater rock,
sprays of water explode into the air and resemble
a rooster’s tail feathers.

Hydraulic Level Five [working title]
Draft 1.15
© Samuel Caulfield Cabral
Baseball Posters

T
HIRTY
-S
EVEN
D
AYS
and six hours. That is the amount of time Aspen has been in Durango visiting her grandmother.

Twenty-two days and eighteen hours. That is the amount of time until Aspen returns to Bear Creek.

His mother comments over chile rellenos how lovely Aspen has become, with her cascade of blond curls and skin as smooth as silver bark. Caulfield stares down at his plate to hide what must be plain in every sixteen-year-old line of his face—he wants Aspen.