Spring Tide (23 page)

He put his slice down and slowly nodded.

“You left me lying on the ground alone and afraid.”

He shook his head. “I had to go. I would’ve done anything to stay. I had no choice. You’ll never understand it but that’s the truth. I called EMS. And then I called Derek because I knew he’d take care of you and do what was best. I loved you then and—”

“You had to go? Go—?”

“God, Kris, you didn’t even like me then, were suspicious of everything I did or said. In hindsight, I think it was good that I wasn’t there when you came around. What would you’ve thought?”

“I don’t know what I would’ve thought. I didn’t get the chance. What was so important that you left like that?”

“I had no choice in the matter. Please accept that.” His eyes pleaded with me to understand.

“Hold up—how did you even know I was at work that morning?”

“I’d just gotten off one of Donovan’s boats, was driving past The Bakery on my way home, saw your car. The shop lights weren’t on. I got a bad feeling.”

“Another bad feeling.”

I turned my attention to the shore so I could make sense of everything he’d said. The sky was darkening into a cool deep blue. The horizon had merged with clouds and the water was flat and gray. A black skimmer stood in the shallows. It looked like a penguin: black on top, white underneath, with a stripe of orange on its long beak. A spoonbill, its feathers as pink as a flamingo’s, landed a few feet away from it. It seemed the skimmer was watching the sky and the spoonbill was watching the skimmer. Another skimmer sailed over the surface and alit by its kin as the spoonbill took to the clouds.

Jericho’s a spoonbill.
He’d left me at The Bakery, but he’d made sure I was in good hands. Derek was the right person to call. I remembered how Jericho had watched me the next day at Nick’s. At the time I’d thought he was freaked out about my blood-stained hair, but I knew better. He’d been worried. He’d come over to make sure I was all right.

I was going to ask about the broken glass and windows, about what had happened to my attacker when it hit me: Donovan was the dwarf. It was his beard, that pointy, elfin beard.

“Donovan.” I said.

He didn’t reply.

“There were four hands on my body. It hurt so much worse than what you did twenty minutes ago, felt like napalm. And you said the burn was nearing the limit of what you could do. Donovan helped you. How bad was I? I need to know.”

He ran one finger over his eyebrow. “Bad. What’s important is that you weren’t in the hospital for weeks. If Donovan hadn’t been with me, you would’ve.”

“Donovan’s like you? Julia?”

He gave me a glance as if to say I’d answered my own question.

A minute or two went by with me being stupefied.

“I’ve met you halfway, gone past it,” he said softly. “I did everything I could for you that morning. Please believe that.”

I didn’t understand how it was that he and Donovan had turned broken bones to bruises, but I was grateful they had. I knew right then that he’d brought the Brussels sprouts, had probably whispered to Arnold to keep it on the down low.

I got up, sat on his lap, put my head on his shoulder, and poked him in the ribs. “And you didn’t get me flowers after that, after all I’d been through?”

He put his arms around me. “You’re not a flowers kind of girl.”

He knew me, really knew me, even back then.

_______

I went for a run but stopped by the pier to gaze at the beauty created by a strong southeast wind and a rip current the size of the Amazon.
Oh yeah.
That day, that morning, was what I had been waiting for. Six a.m., sunlight diffused by scattered clouds, and chunky, healthy waves breaking right. Even better, Jericho was in death mode form of sleeping. Better still, it was Tuesday and no one else was out.
All mine.
I used my key to get in his house and asked my funboard to be kind.

The waves I’d surfed before were knee high or waist high, little. That day’s were shoulder high nearing overhead, huge to me. On my first attempt at catching a respectable wave, I paddled too fast. I knew because I looked over my shoulder and the wave was breaking five feet above my head. I was thrust to the sea floor and a second later the leash was towing me to shore. The second, third, fourth, and fifth time, I paddled too slow and missed the wave altogether.

Trying again, I heard the wave before I felt a monumental surge of energy that stripped my mind of thought. I was up, moving with the ocean’s energy and it was a pure rush, all my senses tuned to the water’s path. I dropped down the face, my body in a crouch low and tight as I went down the line. The ride probably only lasted five or six seconds but felt much longer. Thoroughly invigorated, I paddled back out.

The session lasted a little over an hour and a half. I didn’t get half the waves I wanted and massively wiped out too many times, scraping up my arms, legs, hips, and elbows. The five waves I did get inspired me to try harder. With every ride, successful or not, my confidence grew, the board telling me exactly what my parameters were and the ocean forgiving my blasphemy.

Surfing was about a lot of things: timing, positioning, balance, and awareness of my environment. But more so, surfing was about experience, going out and doing it over and over again. More than that, surfing was personal: one board, one body, one wave.

He stood at the shoreline, his hands in his pockets.

I put down the board and picked up a towel. “How’d I do?”

“I am so proud of you!” He grabbed me into a hug and then pushed me back. “What were you thinking? Look at that current! Don’t you ever go out without me again. Damn, Kris! Are you Nick?”

“I made up my mind a long time ago that I was gonna rock the big girl waves on my own terms, in my own time, by myself. I only inhaled six gallons of seawater, almost barfed once and by golly, I’m alive to tell the tale, so screw you.” I stuck out my tongue. “Does that make you wonder?”

“Yes!” He hugged me again. “Your timing’s still a little off. Foot position was good but you should drop your shoulders a touch. I’m so proud of you. If you ever go out alone ag—”

“It was so much fun.”

He took me out for breakfast and smiled the whole day.

The next two weeks were decent: worked, went on an unsuccessful clam dig, sent a note to Derek’s mom, almost ran out of gas on a Wednesday, fell in love with a new cookbook, and held on tightly to my connection to Jericho to keep my fear of him at bay.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

He struck the glass against the counter. “Devon’s been working on her. She comes home and her eyes are glassy for an hour or more, and patches of her skin are cold. The first time I thought I was imagining it, but it’s happened three more times that I know about. And she’s been smoking. He’s sending me a message.”

“Oh dear.” She put down her paint brush.

“He has her right where he wants her.” He kicked the baseboard. “I can’t be with her every second of the day and I’m making her nuts as it is.”

“But you can’t make yourself crazy with worry over this. Your souls have come together and there’s no way anyone could know that. What’s happening between the two of you is unheard of in our world.”

“She may be connected to me, but that doesn’t mean she won’t do whatever he wants.” He walked around the room again. “And Joel’s still around.”

“You need to recharge. You’ll be better equipped to deal with anything Devon’s planned if you’ve had some time at the assembly.”

“I’ll meet up with you there for Thanksgiving, come back, and then go again at Christmas. She’ll be in Austin then, should be safe. Maybe I’ll whisper to Jermaine to give her a little more time off.”

“There’s purpose in that.”

He stared at a painting of the Irish coast. “I think she’s The One of Green Water. I think that’s why Devon’s waiting her out, has Joel keeping residence here.”

“The One of Green Water is myth and nothing more.”

“I think she is. She’s coming to us at the right time.”

_______

I
went out the side door and made a face. He was messing with my ride.

He held up a greasy hand to me. “Do you check your oil—ever?”

“Not really. There’s an engine light. That’s my cue. And there are these little places in town where they’ll do your oil and check everything over for cheap.”

He looked away from me, horrified by my engine light strategy for car maintenance. “This is an old car. If the light comes on, it means it’s gonna die.” He tossed his keys to me. “I’m gonna change your oil and filters and tune a bunch of other stuff today, so use the truck.”

“I can’t use your truck. I’ll feel like some sort of cowboy. The dragon’s fine.”

“No, Kris, it’s not.”

“Okay.” I sat on the step. His keychain was a silver surfboard—
how apropos.
“So Donovan has family in Ireland?”

“Two sisters, one mean and one meaner.” He mimicked Donovan precisely, his voice even and face too serious.

“That was good. Hey, Julia mentioned you go with them there over the holidays, but if you want, you’re welcome to come home with me for Thanksgiving. You could watch my brother beat up on me for three or four days straight. He’s six five with the build of a linebacker. It’s top-notch entertainment.”

“He’s six five? What happened to you?”

“I take after Mom. Brad takes after Dad.”

“I really wish I could, but I think Julia’s already bought my ticket. Maybe we could go to Austin in the spring?”

“You got it.”

“So, will you see your dad? He doesn’t live with your mom, right? They’re divorced?”

I stared at him, stunned. I’d never told him. “My dad died when I was fifteen. He worked in construction. There was an accident. Six months before his death, Mom kicked him out and he started seeing a specialist for anger management. He was getting better. Then, he was gone. Maybe now you can understand my feelings for Sylvia. She needed help, just like my dad. People can change.”

He brought his hand to his forehead, leaving a grease smear. “God, I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t know. His death, that’s why I hate hospitals. The only time I’ve ever been in a hospital was to see my father pass while my mother fell apart and my brother cried. It was the faces of all the doctors and nurses—sympathetic, consoling, but too comfortable, so fake. It made me sick how they looked at us.”

“My mother was mentally ill.” He kept his vision on the guts of my car. “It wasn’t that she took the business of helping the less fortunate to extremes. She was paranoid, delusional, would pray for hours at a time, thought she saw demons. Sometimes Dad would take me to the races or send me to Malibu to surf so I could get a break from her. I loved her, but the older I got, the worse she became.” He glanced at me. “I really don’t like talking about her.”

Understood.
I studied the graphic on the back of his T-shirt and realized the fancy Asian lettering spelled tsunami. “Dude, why do you live in Corpus when there’s a world of better waves?”

“I can travel to surf. Here’s where I want to be. With you.”

I thumped the porch step. “Speaking of here, Sarah called it. Next week Mrs. Black wants the living room floor tiled as part of an endless flood of improvements. I never shoulda said anything about all the carpet stains. Can I stay at your place while they’re doing the work? I can’t take the fumes from the chemicals, gives me really bad migraines.”

He nodded, his smile too chipper.

Jericho and I moved my stuff on Sunday, the night before the demo, and said our goodbyes to Donovan and Julia, who were leaving early for Ireland and wouldn’t be home until after New Year’s.

_______

I geeked out at the music store too and burned rubber to get to work on time.

I’d rushed for nothing. It was slower than slow at The Landing, the atmosphere in the kitchen relaxed. Jermaine was joking with everyone in his own strange Creole way and since he was in good spirits, he permitted me to assist the pastry chef, who was a goddess in my eyes. She manipulated the most delicate and volatile ingredients to arrive at masterpieces and worked at a learnable pace.

A little after eight, I called Jericho. “Hey, gorgeous, I should be home in the next hour … Jeff did an incantation for my chakra. Jealous? Oh! And I’m crystallizing ginger … You too.”

I started across the parking lot, spinning my key ring around my finger. I heard a loud snap. Suddenly my nerves were liquefied. I dropped the keys. My legs gave out and I fell, my head bouncing twice on the pavement before the lights went out.

My feet prickled, as did my fingers that were digging at the floor. My face felt the same coarse fibers, wet from the saliva that was running from my mouth. I willed my eyes to focus but couldn’t keep them open because my head was throbbing. There was a jolt and then another, the left side of the vehicle bucking.
Potholes.