Spring Tide (17 page)

The rest of the morning and early afternoon weren’t the best. But at the end of my shift, Jeff stopped me at the back door.

“Hey.” He slightly nodded, extreme eye contact in force.

“Hey.” I copied him.

“Feel that?”

“Oh yeah.”

“All right.”

“So, so good.” I held back a smirk.

“Thank you for this morning, your commitment.”

“Thank you. Your … enthusiasm is refreshing.”

“Wow. You have the smile of an angel.” He tented his hands and bowed. “I hope today brings you every blessing.”

“You too.” I bit my cheek to keep it together.

Despite the karmic journey I’d shared with Jeff, it had been a trying eight hours. I’d spent half of the time deveining a thousand pounds of shrimp. Worse, Jermaine was a fascist dictator. Walking around his dominion, he glowered at everyone with biting comments and harsh criticisms about technique or productivity. I had to remind myself it would get better. He’d just take some getting used to.

When I got home Sarah was seated in a chair, wearing jeans and talking to someone.

I tossed my backpack into the living room where it landed with a nice, loud thud.

“Hi!” She smiled.

“Hi!” I replied and then saw Jericho sitting on the sofa. I pointed a finger at him. “You. How do you know Jeff? He surfs?”

He laughed. “Don’t think so. Okay, this guy was camping at South Padre a few months back and sucked me into an hour-long discussion about my perspective of the colors in the water from the rising sun. Then he moved on to the inspiration he felt from each wave and its connection to our planetary oneness. I’m married to the ocean, but Jeff takes it to a whole ’nother level. He stops by the house and hangs with Julia every so often. Did he read your aura?”

“Not yet.” I rolled my neck and it cracked. “But he did tell me he used to be into martial arts, a quest to find inner peace, until he started practicing yoga and that’s when he discovered the untapped energy of the universe.”

“Who are you talking about?” Sarah said.

“Jeff’s showing me the ropes. You must meet him. He’s out there, like lost in space out there. Now I’m not sayin’ I don’t like him but—”

“Oh please,” she adjusted her earring, “you like everybody. Let’s see, what were you voted by our class? Most friendly! You were friends with everybody—nerds, Goths, hippies, jocks, techies, good girls, bad girls, everyone.”

“You should talk, Miss Most Attractive.” I countered.

“Was Derek anything?” Jericho asked.

“Most likely to succeed,” Sarah and I said together.

“When did you graduate?” Sarah asked him.

He thought for a moment. “Like four years ago, five.”

I slapped my Levi’s and looked at Sarah. “Your fashion includes denim? I can’t remember the last time I saw you in jeans.”

“Nick’s taking me to a minor league baseball game. Yippee.” She applied more lipstick to her pout. “I can’t believe I agreed to go. And you know how he acts at sporting events. Maybe it’ll get rained out.”

The sky was powder blue—no clouds, no chance.

“If I’m not home by five, call me and make up some emergency so I’ll have to jet.” She gave a weak wave and went to the door.

“Sarah, wait,” he got up, “I’ll walk you down. When I got here I saw some guy snooping around your car.”

“What guy?” Sarah turned back to us.

“Little guy,” he said.

“Little guy, plaid shirt, kinda lurky?” I did my best impression.

He nodded.

“That’s Aaron.” I reached into my back pocket. “He’s Sarah’s stalker.”

“There’s somethin’ about him that’s off.”

I pulled out my keys. “This is getting ridiculous. I’m gonna go talk to him.”

“The hell you will.” He took them from me.

I reached for them. “It’s just Aaron.”

He held them over his head. “Bad feeling, okay?”

He went with Sarah and came back five minutes later, reporting that Sarah’s car didn’t have slashed tires or an ignition detonating bomb.

“Sarah should think about a restraining order. I’ve already seen this guy a few times. Who knows how much he’s around?” He stretched out on the couch.

“Where?”

“Here, beach, Nick’s, Panda Bear Sandwiches, once at Crazy Jim’s.”

“Baby, you’re overreacting.” I sat on the arm. “It’s a secure building and ultimately Aaron will give up. He’s working through puppy love. He’s not the first, albeit the oddest, and not the last to fall head over heels for her. He likes to look at her and that’s not a crime. A lot of guys like to look at her.”

“I don’t like the feeling I get from him. Promise me if you see him, you’ll stay away. Sarah too.”

Aaron, Joel, anyone else?
I checked my watch. “Ummm, why aren’t you at work and aren’t you hating the couch right now?”

“I make my own schedule and the couch is quicksand.” He tried to sit up. “Other than Jeff, how was your day?”

“You know how it is.” I pushed him down and crawled on top of him, a bold move for me. “New job, new people, Jermaine’s super nitpicky. Holy shit, like I’ve never cleaned shrimp before!”

The couch of doom wasn’t accommodating to two and before my lips could touch his, I was flat on my back on the floor. In one lithe motion he was next to me, lightly kissing my neck, his fingers sweeping my hair from my face. He kissed me deeply, his body held an inch above mine. The tension in my neck and back was diluted as the current pulled me out and my mind settled at the bottom like a shipwreck. It was like he knew I needed the deluge, to come down from Jermaine’s harassment. He stopped, put his forehead against mine, and I breathed in the scent of saltwater.

“I really, really like that,” I said.

“Likewise.”

I sat up, came out of the bends and staggered to the kitchen for water and a snack. I selected a cluster of grapes from the produce bin and went back to him.

“Swim?” I popped one into his mouth.

“Surf?”

“You surf, I’ll swim?”

“I’ll swim with you, you surf with me, and then we’ll call Jeff and see if he wants to hunt for rainbows.”

“I’m down with the rainbow thing, but I’m tellin’ you right now, surfing’s not in me.” I shoved a handful of grapes in my mouth and went back to my room to change.

We went to his house and he decided we’d surf first. The first hour I caught one out of every thirty waves. The second hour I caught one out of every thirty waves. Judging and timing a wave was truly the hardest thing on earth to do. Once it was obvious I was frustrated, he ran inside to get towels and water, sticking me with rinsing off the boards.

_______

I survived my second shift.

Walking the parking lot of The Landing on the way to my car, I read the none-too-clever vanity plates of the patrons.

“Hello, Kris.”

I turned around and almost bumped into tall, dark, and handsome. “Well hello, Troy. How’ve you been?”

“Just biding my time, as we all are.”

“Did you have lunch here?”

“The snapper. It was incredible.”

“Nice.” I had a hand in that fish, literally, and took my props.

“How’s Jericho?”

“Great. Are you friends?”

I heard the back door of the restaurant open and close, followed by what sounded like a chant, but I kept staring at Troy, taken by his poise and the crisp lines of his white shirt. He gave me a smile and a two-finger salute and then walked toward the street. Jeff appeared next to me.

“That guy has an intense ambiance. I see shades of …” Jeff’s hand rose to his nose, “oh man, I lost it.”

According to Cosmic Jeff, my aura was white, gold, and purple and Jericho’s was light blue, dark blue, and pink, the outer layer extending over twenty-five feet. I couldn’t even imagine what Troy’s would be.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

“Julia, make it stop. It’s been three months and I can’t take it anymore.”

“It started when you connected?” She itched the inside of her ear.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll do what I can but you might have to live with it. Is it loud?”

“No, yes, it depends. It’s constant from within a half mile of her.”

“That’s impressive.” She placed her hands on the sides of his head. “Projection is rare, very specific to purpose. This one has a very special path, of that I’m sure. That she’s making use before awareness is extraordinary.”

“Just do something. Making use … she’s making me mental.”

Light from her eyes streamed into his. She whispered, stopped her light, and stepped back from him. “Better?”

“We’ll find out. She slept for three days, but there’s nothing. Why isn’t anything happening?”

“Because she isn’t ready. You already have her. Be patient.”

_______

S
ylvia’s cat was hungry, his cries perforating the wall of my bedroom in thirty-minute intervals. By one in the morning, I was about to climb the walls. Jericho, however, was dead to the world.

I went next door and knocked—no answer.
Of course.
I went back to bed and put a pillow over my head.

I was up again at five-thirty, not that I wanted to be. The cat was going bananas. At seven, I pulled on shorts and went to Sylvia’s. I knocked, waited, and knocked again. I tried the knob and it turned. I didn’t feel right about waltzing in but was scared to death she’d blacked out in the shower, hit her head, or worse.

Holding Bongos, I wandered her apartment and called her name several times, becoming a little bit more shocked with every corner I turned. Her purse was on the shelf in the bathroom. Hesitantly, I picked it up and inspected the contents. Only somewhat consoled that she wasn’t face down on the carpet, I left.

Jericho was sitting at the kitchen island—shirtless, beautiful, and incoherent. He was also drinking coffee that had been on the burner for hours.

I took the mug from his hand and started a fresh pot. “It only takes a few minutes. I can’t believe you were drinking that. Yuck.”

“Where were you?” He stared at the coffeemaker.

“Next door. Bongos—”

He jumped off the stool. “You promised you wouldn’t go over there!”

“Ah no, you are not gonna get in my face ’cause I did the right thing.”

He walked to the other side of the kitchen, his mouth a thin line.

“J, no one was there.”

“That’s not the point, Kris.”

I poured a cup and put it on the island. “The cat’s manic. And for crying out loud, I was right next door for two whole minutes with the door open within reach of you.”

Sarah surfaced and took his cup off the counter. “Today, we kill Sylvia and then we kill her cat.”

I picked a piece of lint off her nightie. “I checked on Bongos, have no idea what’s wrong. He has tons of food, water, a clean litter box.”

She put her face directly in front of mine. “I need my sleep. The cat must die. And don’t even think about bringing it over here. I’m allergic, remember?”

“I know, I know, I know. Listen,” I put my hand to my ear, “he’s calm now. But if he starts flipping out again I’m sleeping at J’s tonight and you might wanna go to Nick’s until I figure something out.”

“You know full well I can’t stay there! His room smells like a gym bag filled with cheese grits.”

On cue, Nick came out of Sarah’s room and kissed her head. “Good a.m., hosers.” He reached into his shorts pocket and tossed me a set of keys. “From my mom. You might wanna wash stuff and don’t tell her—”

“About the throw pillows you set on fire. I won’t.” I put the set by the frog pot thingy. “How’d you sleep, Nick?”

“Like the babe I am.”

Sarah rolled her eyes, looked at the boys and then at me as if to ask why they’d slept and we hadn’t. “So was Sylvia passed out on her kitchen table or what?”

“She wasn’t there at all and what’s bothering me is that when I was at her place with Derek—” I cleared my throat, “with Derek a few weeks ago to show him the cat’s gift for rhythm, her condo was chaos. Today, it was spic-n-span. The bed was made, the trash cans were emptied and everything, and she left without her purse. She never goes anywhere without her purse. It holds her flask.”

“Maybe she got a new purse. She’s got great taste, totally choice clothes. Although, you notice she wears black all the time like a devil worshipper. Then again, black is timeless.” She stirred sweetener into her cup. “Anyway, she probably hired someone to come in and clean for her. She can afford it.”

“How? I don’t think she works.”

“She told me once that her divorce settlement was more than generous. Her husband was cheating on her. She was laughing ’cause she was cheating on him too, but didn’t get caught.”

“But, dude, her purse had her wallet, her ID, credit cards …”

Jericho hadn’t moved, but his face was reacting to our discussion, his eyes glowing in short bursts. He abruptly got his things and left, making the excuse that he had some last-minute work to do at the marina.