Sour Grapes (The Blue Plate Series) (15 page)

I break the surface in time to witness Ryan hurl himself into the air and land with an impressive splash five yards from me. Popping up, he combs a hand through his hair and swims over to where I’m treading water.

“I expected you to use the swing, but you went all in,” he says, pointing to a frayed rope swaying from a tree near the crest of the cliff.

“And I was hoping you’d belly flop and deflate your overblown ego, but I guess we don’t always get what we want,” I say, smiling sweetly at him.

“Marge, it requires a personality like mine to contend with your snarkiness,” he says, grabbing my waist, his fingers playing with the top of my underwear. The slight pressure is enough to lure me to him. His eyes are startlingly bright. Green with flecks of brown and gold, colors of the earth. Water droplets shine in his lashes, and his skin glistens.

Grasping his shoulders, my breasts pushing against his chest, I kick my legs between us to stay afloat, the fabric of his boxer briefs grazing my thighs. He guides us into an alcove behind the waterfall, the sun filtering through the fissures and crevices in the stone. Ryan uses a rock that juts out to keep us steady as I hang on to him. He slides his free hand along my ribs, over my bra. Moving the hair off my neck, he leans into me, and I suck in a shaky breath, anticipating his kiss.

Instead, he tilts his head back slightly and meets my gaze, a grin on his face as he twirls a piece of my hair. “You know, there’s never been a time I haven’t thought you were sexy. But there’s something about the way you look now, with your hair tangled and fanned out, makeup washed off, and bare skin, that I can’t get enough of . . . I’m bewitched.” He wraps an arm around my waist. The weight of his palm feels warm and solid against my skin. “It makes me wonder, given what a powerhouse you are when you’re all wound up and put together, what you’d accomplish if you unleashed yourself. What would you choose to do? Who would you choose to be? Whatever it is, I hope I’m there for it.”

His words knock the breath out of me, and instinctively I pull away. I can feel my heart pounding in my ears, so loud I don’t know how the sound isn’t echoing around the alcove. I’ve been naked in front of a man plenty of times, but I’ve never felt more exposed than I do right now. So few have ever seen beyond my polished manners and careful expressions that it’s impossible for me to process—let alone accept—praise like this.

And what does he mean he hopes he’s there for it?

It hits me suddenly that this is the closest anyone has ever come to discussing commitment with me, and I’m so completely out of my depth I don’t know how to interpret what he said. It seems as if Ryan has such a firm grip on his future, on his plans and where he wants to be—would it be so easy for him to envision me there with him? Is that what he wants? I’m desperate to know, but I’m too afraid of his answer.

“Margaret, wait, come here,” Ryan says over the din of the waterfall, his brow furrowed. He glides toward me, stopping close enough for our bodies to almost touch. “Why do you have such a hard time accepting a compliment?”

His eyes travel over my face, and the way they tempt me, test me, read
me, strips away all my pretenses. The truth flows out of me in a rush.

“I don’t have much experience with flattery that isn’t a guise for carefully crafted condescension,” I say.

“I find that hard to believe,” he says. “There’s so much about you worth appreciating.”

Of course in his world, unlike in mine, praise isn’t a novelty you have to constantly second-guess. For as long as I can remember, my life’s been a giant pressure cooker. The unrealistic demands for perfection and success. The constant parental criticism that shifts from grades and popularity in childhood to careers and social status in adulthood.

“I was raised to project a pristine image my mother can be proud of. Vulnerability has never been an option,” I say, bobbing like driftwood as water laps around me. “And compliments,
if
they came, were backhanded and meant to point out my flaws and failures. The message was that I should be constantly striving to be better, work harder.”

Ryan shakes his head no. “The problem with passive-aggressive criticism is that most of the time it only proves that the person talking hasn’t bothered to look beneath the surface. Your mother certainly never has.” He pulls me toward him, one of his legs sliding along mine. “And I know you
know
that. So why do you let her treat you as if you’re beneath her or that you’re a constant disappointment that baffles her? Where’s the fearless girl who blindly snuck into a haunted house and told me off when we got caught?”

My chest tightens. I thought once all my secrets were out in the open, I’d feel free. But shame courses through me, holding me captive.

“Because she’s my mother,” I say automatically, as if it’s that simple. As if that explains her behavior and my reaction.

An emotion passes over Ryan’s face. I recall him mentioning that his father preferred using fists to words, and I realize he understands more than anyone—and especially more than I do—what it’s like to grow up in an unforgiving environment. “Blood doesn’t constitute loyalty or familial obligation—and it certainly doesn’t mean what she says is true.”

“It does where I come from. You’re not born into money without strings attached,” I say, not to brag but so that he understands. “And when you’re raised with every advantage, every luxury, it’s difficult not to feel as if you have to be worthy of the life afforded to you.” I raise my eyes to meet his and whisper, “I want so badly to be worthy.”

“Margaret,” he says, his gaze like a magnifying glass on me. “The woman I’m looking at, the woman who doesn’t seem afraid to stand up to anyone, she’s worth
everything
. All she needs to do is believe it.”

I want to tell him he’s right, that I’m as strong as he thinks I am, but the lie gets trapped in my throat. Instead I kiss him, losing myself in the sensation of his mouth on mine, the feel of his wet, silky hair between my fingers.

Someday I hope I can prove his words true.

14

A
xel’s Off Main reminds me of the dive bars where I used to watch the Randy Hollis Band perform, back when they were still a bunch of college guys writing country music out of a grungy apartment and trying to break into the industry. Back when I mattered to them.

The drinks are dirt cheap, the faux wood paneled walls are decorated with kitschy art and rusty license plates, and the bartenders look like they’ve seen every scenario and then seen it all again. The air smells of stale beer and dirty mop water. Even the dartboards and pool tables with green felt that’s faded and threadbare have the right amount of grime—a perfect balance between well loved and gross.

When Bon Bon invited me to ladies’ karaoke night, I expected the typical boring setup—drunk people stumbling around on a stage while slurring out-of-tune hits, the audience pretending to pay attention but more concerned with snagging the random hookup.

Instead I’m a front-row spectator to Mad Libs karaoke where the crowd—a mix of young and old—is
fully
engaged. The only males in the place are the deejay and the bartenders.

Beside me, Bon Bon and three of her friends—Amber, Tiffany, and Gina, the manager of the Vintner’s Collective and the woman I saw with Possum at the Camden Cellars party—flip through the book of song options. Rather than the traditional track listings, each page is a removable lyric sheet with lines where key words or phrases have been removed. I select “Ironic” by Alanis Morissette and spend the next fifteen minutes reworking the verses and chorus to make them
actually
ironic. When I finish, I give the paper to one of the servers to put into the queue.

Right now there’s an older woman—Essie, as announced by the deejay—in a Western-style button-down and cowboy boots attempting a raunchy version of Amy Grant’s “Baby Baby.” She’s replaced words like “heart” and “in motion” with “nipple” and “pumping.” The audience roars with laughter and cheers as she dances seductively and does gestures with the microphone that will plague me with nightmares.

“If you think this is bad, imagine Essie gyrating while singing Salt-n-Pepa’s ‘Push It,’ ” Bon Bon yells in my ear.

I make a face. “That’s horrifying.”

Laughing, Bon Bon twirls a flimsy napkin above her head and launches it in the air so it lands at Essie’s feet with the other junk cluttered on the stage—silk roses that were handed out at the door, wine corks, and coasters. The music fades out and applause erupts. Bowing, Essie exits into the crowd of regulars who greet her with high fives.

“Margaret, welcome to a standard night of depravity for us,” Amber says as a waitress delivers enough lemon drop shots to our table to intoxicate a football team. The color is meant to be bright yellow, but under the horrendous overhead neon lights, the liquid appears blue. Amber takes one before passing the tray around.

She’s strikingly gorgeous—big doe eyes, a heart-shaped face, and long brunette hair that has never touched dye—and it makes me want to pinch her to ensure she’s real. Where I come from, natural beauty is as rare as an endangered species.

Tiffany slides three shots in my direction. “Bottoms up,” she says, then informs me that because I arrived late to the festivities, I need to play catch-up. After Ryan brought me back to the Inn this afternoon, I spent five hours fighting with the online reservation system on the website until I finally got it functioning properly. Axel’s was packed and spiraling into debauchery by the time I showed up.

Picking up one of the glasses, I lick the sugar rim and swallow the shot. The taste is reminiscent of limoncello—the burn of the alcohol, the sweetness of the simple syrup, the bitterness of the lemon flavor. Squeezing my eyes shut, I polish off another, my throat on fire.

“Thatta girl.” Tiffany slaps the tabletop, rattling drink glasses. Liquid sloshes against the sides and onto the cracked wood surface.

She has a nose-to-ear chain, supporting a row of tiny gold medallions, and a Gothic style—black skinny jeans and black fitted blouse, sleek black hair that reflects purple in certain angles, pale skin—that reminds me of Angelina Jolie circa 1999. She’s a loan officer at the only bank in town, and on the weekends does tarot card readings out of the shed in her backyard.

Bon Bon elbows me in the ribs. “Be careful. Tiff’s the lush of the group. She’ll drag down anyone who’s stupid enough to fall for her antics.” Tonight she’s wearing a different Camden Cellars T-shirt, this one with the No Regrets winking eye logo above the breast pocket. She must have come straight from the winery.

Tiffany dips her fingers into some ice water and flicks the droplets at Bon Bon’s face. “Margaret, don’t listen to her.” There’s a gap between her right incisor and canine, and it gives her speech a slight lisp. “I may be a lush, but I’m a helluva lot of fun, and you seem like you could use some of that.” Tiffany wraps an arm around my shoulders, squeezing me against her, and slams back a shot of her own.

From the moment Bon Bon spotted me hovering in the doorway and waved me over, I’ve been treated as if I’m part of the group. In fact, when Bon Bon introduced me to her friends as “the girl who gave Cricket a taste of his own medicine,” they actually
thanked me
for getting Ryan thrown in jail.

The deejay calls Gina as the next victim, and the entire bar breaks out into hollering and catcalls. Pushing back from the table, she pops the collar on her leather jacket, the tattoos covering her chest peeking out from beneath the fabric of her worn shirt. “Okay, ladies. Time to show you how it’s done.” With one hand on her hip and the other pointed toward the ceiling, she struts toward the stage like Mick Jagger.

Gina steps up to the microphone as the opening chords of Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar on Me” fill the room. As she sings, the crowd claps along. I’m so entranced by her voice, raspy and deep and soulful, equal parts Joan Jett and smooth jazz saxophone, that it takes a moment for me to process that she took Mad Libs karaoke to a whole new level and changed the lyrics into a parody titled “Pour Some Salsa on Me” about a horny burrito that wants to get stuffed with goodies, rolled, and have hot sauce smothered all over it.

The song is so absurd, so comical in its brilliance, that a laugh bubbles up. At first it’s small, a tickle in the back of my throat, but it grows like a wildfire I can’t control until I’m unable to breathe or make a sound, my stomach cramping from laughing so hard.

“Are you dying?” Amber asks.

But now I’ve infected Bon Bon, who’s snickering beside me. “This is nothing compared to Gina’s rendition of
The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
theme song. She puts a Disney spin on it and calls her version ‘The Fresh Princess of Beast’s Castle.’ It’s famous around here. She even channels her inner Belle and wears a gold taffeta dress while performing it.”

“And she always ends the song with a spot-on impersonation of the Carlton dance,” Tiffany says, cackling, her green eyes bright, almost glowing like a cat’s.

I picture Gina dressed in a poofy nineties prom dress, arms flailing, fingers snapping, and hips swinging in rhythm with the music, and laughter explodes out of me like water through a dam. Soon the three of us are all helpless, bent over and cracking up. Amber tries to keep a straight face, but eventually the giggles overtake her.

I can’t remember the last time I laughed so loud and hard and with tears leaking out of my eyes, as though my body can’t contain the joy flooding through it. If only life could always feel like this, exuberant and free and full of possibility. Though as I look around at the girls still guffawing like idiots, at Gina who’s now mimicking playing an electric guitar on stage, at the audience soaking up every moment of the evening, I wonder if that’s exactly how life is in Wilhelmsburg.

If that’s how it could be for me.

An hour later Moose and Possum join us, and they come bearing dinner. Axel’s doesn’t serve food unless you consider the maraschino cherries food.

To my amusement, Possum has changed the color of his shaggy curls from carrot orange to My Little Pony pink. He gives me a two-finger salute in acknowledgment, then scoops Gina into his arms and plants a kiss on her mouth. They spend a solid minute making out, him cupping her butt with both palms and her grinding against his thigh. Bon Bon whistles, along with a few other people, and they break apart, flipping everyone off.

“So after that appetizer, who’s hungry?” Moose asks with a bemused expression. Pushing aside the empty shot glasses cluttering the table, he places boxes of pizza, buckets of buffalo chicken wings and drumettes, silverware and paper plates, and various condiments in the center. I’m going to need to find a personal trainer or join a gym soon to combat the amount of calories I’ve consumed since arriving in town.

Then again, as long as I stay in Wilhelmsburg, I may never have to work out, with the amount of upkeep the bed-and-breakfast requires.

“I didn’t picture you as the karaoke type,” Moose says, ruffling my hair like he’s teasing his baby sister. As an only child, I’ve never understood the sibling dynamic, but now I think I missed out on something special.

“I’m blaming it on peer pressure,” I say, flicking his cartoon moose tattoo on its Rudolph-red nose in retaliation.

“The rest of us have already performed, but Margaret hasn’t been called yet. It’s coming though,” Gina cuts in. She smiles at me in a way that feels genuine, but based on how she’s scrutinizing my cotillion posture and navy sheath dress, it seems as though she’s convinced I’ll be the most uptight person to ever sing an off-key cover of a pop song. She’s right, of course, but I promised myself to try new things and all that, so I refuse to back out.

“And we all know what Margaret’s capable of, so imagine the trouble she’ll cause on stage,” Bon Bon says with a wink, like we’re best friends sharing a private joke. It reminds me of how it used to be between Piper, Samma, Faye, and me, before competition and jealousy tainted our relationship.

At least Ryan isn’t here to witness my future embarrassment, even if I secretly wish he was. It’s unnerving how much I crave his smart-ass mouth and disarming personality—his approval—especially since he’s supposed to be a fun way for me to forget the past. But I suspect I’m only fooling myself in that regard. He’s already becoming more to me than anyone else ever has, and it doesn’t scare me as much as I thought it would.

Possum dishes everyone slices of pizza, chicken wings and drumettes, and celery sticks that pretend to add nutritional value to the meal, while Moose steals two chairs from a nearby table. Wedging one into a corner for Possum and the other between Bon Bon and me, he takes a seat, his bulky frame pressing against our shoulders.

“So are you and Possum regulars at ladies’ night?” I ask Moose while we eat. The sea of people has thinned a bit, but still the number of males can be counted on one hand, so unless they’re rabid karaoke fans, I don’t understand why they’re here.

Across from me, Amber laughs around a mouthful of mozzarella and pepperoni. “They’re here every week.”

“It’s not our fault the boss always schedules us on this night,” Moose says.

“Oh, admit it. You both love being the only guys among all these women.” She flings a packet of wet wipes at him that he bats away. Amber starts to say something else, but she spots someone she knows across the room and excuses herself.

Moose faces me. “Possum bartends and I deejay for the late crowd.”

“Why do you work here if you have the store and your carpentry business?” I ask, spooning some ranch dressing onto my plate for the drumettes. “Grant yourself the luxury of a break.” I tear off a piece of chicken and pop it into my mouth.

Silence settles over the table. Everyone stares at me, incredulous and a little offended.

Possum clears his throat. “Most folks in Wilhelmsburg have multiple jobs in order to make ends meet,” he says, and I feel like an out-of-touch snob, which I guess in reality I am. “I gotta get ready for my shift.” Possum finishes his pizza in two bites, then heads to the bar, Gina following behind him, their fingers linked together.

“My mistake,” I say too late for Possum to hear.

“Don’t worry about the slipup. We’ve all shoved our foot in our mouths before,” Tiffany says to me, licking some hot sauce off her thumb. She’s eaten in record time, leaving only a mound of little bones and crusts on her plate.

“Ain’t that the truth.” Moose nudges my side, and I bet he’s remembering how he did something similar around me recently. “All right, it’s my turn to deejay. Margaret, I hope you’re prepared, because I’m calling you up soon.” He piles some chicken wings onto a stack of napkins and steals a sip of Bon Bon’s lager.

“Hey! Buy your own,” Bon Bon says, punching his bicep that’s the size of a ham hock, which doesn’t seem to affect him. She winds up like she’s going to hit him again, but Moose steps out of her reach, snatching away her beer bottle in the process. Snickering, he swerves around servers and groups of inebriated women to the DJ booth.

“What a little shit.” Bon Bon shakes her head in exasperation but smiles.

I so desperately want that tight-knit, easy friendship they all have with one another that it causes an ache in my chest. The pain must show in my expression, because she asks, “You okay?”