Sweet Forty-Two (9 page)

There
was
no place to start that conversation. It just kind of happened. Mid-sentence and I’d be floating fast and slowly all at once with Alice down that hole.

“Okay. Let’s go.” Looking up, I found Regan with a grey tank and his black Converses, and no recollection of the amount of time that had passed.

Looking out the window in an attempt to reorient myself, I found Bo and Ember sitting in the sand, staring at the water. They were never leaving each other. That was the message scrawled across the scene of her head on his shoulder while his fingers glided up and down her arm. I hated that it was so obvious.

I hated that I’d never have that.

I cleared my throat. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

“Do you want to just swing up to La Jolla right now and then I can take you back to get your car?” I glanced at Georgia out of the corner of my eye, who seemed to have glued herself to the door of my car. Her arm was pressed against the door, and if she had moved her head a fraction of an inch, it would have rested on the glass.

“No, I have to go a little further north later today, so bring me to my car at E’s and you can follow me back.” She looked out the window as she spoke. Not at the cars passing by, though. Further out. Like into another time, or something.

I took a deep breath and struggled to form the next words. “Sorry things got so crazy last night. How are you?” Georgia didn’t seem to be the kind of girl who liked to be asked if she was okay.

I was right.

She arched her eyebrow as she whipped her head around. “I’m
fine.
”

“Is Dex your boyfriend?”

“Are you deaf to social cues, or something? What about my tone makes you think I want to talk about Dex at
all
?” She leaned her head against the window.

Ok, then.

I twisted my lips and focused on the road, grateful that the drive back to E’s would be twenty minutes, tops. On second thought, that seemed like a really long time.

At a red light I turned toward her. She was in faded jean shorts, but they weren’t as short as the ones I’d seen her in behind the bar. They were rolled up to her mid-thigh, the part where the inner thigh curves in just slightly. She was wearing one of those tank tops with the way oversized armholes. The kind
designed
to let lookers-on view the side of the bra.

Hers was red. Bright red. That wasn’t the most interesting part. Okay, it was, but what caught my eye after three seconds was a tattoo just below the lacy red fabric.

“What does your tattoo say?” The driver in the car behind me laid on her horn, kindly letting me know I’d been sitting at a green light for who knows how long. I moved forward as Georgia gestured kindly back to the driver with her hand out the window.

“You lookin’?” She smirked as she looked back at me, her eyes simmering.

“Seems you made sure I would with that shirt.” I bit my lip to keep from smiling too big.

“It is far better to be feared than loved.”

“Excuse me?”

“My tattoo. It says
it is far better to be feared than loved
.”

“Ah,” I nodded, swallowing once to keep the heaviness away. “Not true, though...”

Georgia snorted. “Clearly you’ve never been in love.”

My head started to float a little, just like it had last night. I shifted in my seat, stretching my head side to side in hopes of stopping it.

“Am I wrong?” she pressed, teasingly.

“You’re wrong.” I felt cold sweat sprout along my hairline. Two deep breaths later and I felt regulated again.

“Then,” Georgia sighed, “you’ve never been feared.” All jest drained from her voice as she rooted her elbow on the armrest and shook her hand through her hair.

With a quick glance, I could see that CJ was right when he teased her about dying her hair. Deep, black roots shown between her fingers.
She
’
d look excellent with black hair
. I was relieved to see our exit coming up.

It was barely seven in the morning as I turned into the parking lot of E’s tavern. Georgia and I had ridden the rest of the way in strained silence. Just when I’d thought I’d learned a great deal about women from spending so much time with Ember, I felt like Georgia was speaking a different language. The attitude she displayed with her mouth was at odds with the vulnerability in her eyes. CJ mentioned that her dad was kind of a loser, so I chalked it up to daddy issues.

“Here we are. That blue car yours?” I headed toward a Chevy Cavalier.

“That’s me. He’s not my boyfriend, by the way.”

I put the car in park. “What?”

“Dex. He’s not my boyfriend.” She reached behind my seat and pulled her small canvas backpack into her lap. The smell of mint still lingered on her pale skin.

“Oh. Well ... what the hell was that all about last night, then?”

She rolled her eyes. “He’s just a jacked up ex-jock with Narcissistic Personality Disorder.”

“Aren’t they all?”

“That friend of yours, Bo, isn’t, right?”

“How’d you know Bo was a jock?”

She shrugged. “It would have been a damn waste of those shoulders if he wasn’t.”

“Well,” I laughed, “I think he was the quarterback.”

“Of course he was.” She rolled her eyes, not mockingly, but seemingly to cue me into her thoughts on high school caste systems.

“But didn’t you leave the bar with him?”

“Who?”

“Dex.”

“Sure,” she smiled as she opened the door, “I leave the bar with a lot of people, Regan. Dex, though ... I didn’t go home with Dex. I walked him to a cab. Follow me back up the highway. K?”

“Will do.” I barely got out the end of my sentence as her door slammed to a close.

Craving spearmint gum the whole way, I followed Georgia’s ten-year-old car up I-5.

Once we navigated into La Jolla, her car took left turn after left turn, it seemed, until we were dangerously close to the water. Turning left down one more road, there were buildings to my left, and nothing to my right. Air. And, apparently, a cliff.

Georgia pulled up in front of a white building with a garage on street level. Next to the garage, in the same building, was what appeared to be a small bakery. There was no name on it, and the lights were off. I pulled up behind her, checking my surroundings once more, before succumbing to the glaring reality that I’d never be able to afford this place.

“Yo,” Georgia rapped on my window, “we’re here, rock star.”

I got out and looked up at the top floor, which held large picture windows. “You ... this ... this is the place?”

“Yeah, follow me.” She pulled a key from her pocket and headed up the stone stairs that wrapped around the building, making the entrance in the back.

Once inside the narrow entryway, I saw an “A” on the door to the right and a “B” on the door to the left.

“This is the one that’s open.” Georgia stuck the key into the “B” apartment lock and opened the door, letting me in first.

Light.

God, the light. Windows from the front and side were like broken dams, flooding the room with bright Pacific sun. The large rectangular space looked more Cape Cod than La Jolla. The floors were bamboo and the walls were distressed wood planks, painted white.

Blue.

The back wall looked blue, but that was a window that canvassed the perfect sky and ocean. Their meeting point was the furthest point in my new living room. There was a small galley kitchen to the left, and I assumed a bedroom and bathroom on the right, but I just stood at the window, breathing in the enormity of it all.

“I can’t afford this.” I shook my head and turned my back to the view, not wanting to torture myself.

Georgia met me at the window, wrapped her tiny hand around my bicep and turned me around again. “You haven’t even asked how much it is.”

I wondered if she could feel my pulse pick up as she stood silently gazing out the window with me. Her hand still wrapped around me.

“The ocean might be blue, G, but it bleeds green. You lived on the other coast, you know that.”

“Did you just call me G?” She looked up, but wasn’t blushing like she did when I’d caught her checking me out in my shorts earlier.

“I did.” It slipped out, but felt natural. Maybe it was because that’s typically how CJ referred to her.

The skin around her eyes creased a little, as if she were smiling, but her mouth didn’t turn up. “Please take it.”

“How much is it?” I winced, bracing for the huge price tag. I had a shitload of money in savings, but wasn’t interested in blowing through it inside of a year on rent alone.

Her head tilted to the side as her eyes narrowed in thought. After half a second she spoke. “How much can you afford?”

“That’s hardly an answer.”

“It most certainly is an answer.” She started bouncing on her toes like she was a child waiting in line for a balloon animal.

I sighed. “It’s not an answer to that kind of question.”

“And why not?”

Our conversation was making me dizzy.

“Don’t get all flustered. Let’s go ask the owner of the building.”

“Oh, they’re here? I figured since you had the keys they wouldn’t be here.”

“We’re early, remember? Sunrise headstands and whatnot?”

I laughed. “Yeah.”

Georgia slid her hand down my arm and locked it around my wrist as she led me through the apartment. This was the brightest I’d ever seen her. Excitement looked good on her.

She dropped my arm as she knocked on the door to apartment A, bouncing from foot to foot. Knocking one more time with a huge smile on her face, she animatedly rolled her eyes, and fished another key from her shallow pockets.

“Did you say you lived across the hall?”

She turned the key. “I don’t have keys to anyone else’s apartment...”

I felt more confused with each second I spent with her. She was like this Rubik’s Cube that changed patterns around each turn. Impossible. I wanted to try to solve her, though. I hadn’t sorted out if that was a good thing or a bad thing before the door flew open.

Her eyebrow arched, teeth biting back a huge smile.

What?

I stood with my mouth open, eyes searching the apartment behind her, and she laughed. “This is my building, Regan.”

What?

“You live here, yeah...”

She stepped back, holding the door open and waving me in. “My building as in, yes, I live here, and I own it.”

While the layout of this apartment was the same as the one across the hall, it was fully decorated. A cream colored couch was up against a bright aqua wall. Fishing line ran the length of the apartment, suspended five or so inches from the ceiling. There were four rows of it, and woven between them were bright sheer scarves. Yellows, blues, greens ... I felt like I was in some sort of fairytale.

My words were coming out a few seconds apart. “The whole building? How in the hell? What?”

She giggled. For the first time in the few short days that I’d known her, she let out what could only be described as a giggle. I didn’t call her on it, though. She’d have kicked my ass.

“Yes, the whole building. It was my dad’s. He bought it like twenty years ago. When he died, I got it.”

This was the first I’d heard her talk about either of her parents.

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize he’d passed away. CJ didn’t tell me.”

My pockets were all bunched up inside, fumbling my attempt to nonchalantly do something with my hands. I always had to be productive with my hands, especially in awkward situations. Music was the perfect outlet for that, but this was hardly the time for a violin solo.

“No worries, I just told CJ last night, anyway. Not his fault.” Georgia walked deeper into her apartment and held her arms out. “So, you see, this place is nearly identical to yours. My dad had it all as one space, but six months ago I had it renovated into two units. I didn’t need all the space. And, the rent will help with ... life.”

“What about your mom?”

Her shoulders stiffened for a split second before her exhale. “Gone.”

“I’m so sorry.” I met her at her picture window. My hand hovered over the small of her back, but I hesitated, instead brushing it across her shoulder blades.

“Don’t be. It is what it is. This view is perfect, though, isn’t it?”

I breathed in reverence at the identical view to the apartment across the hall, allowing for her change in subject. “Yeah, about the rent...”

“Five hundred.”

“Ha!” She jumped at my loud response. “No fucking way. That’s insane.”

“No,” she snapped, “that’s not insane.”

Her face was all screwed up, happiness swirled with something distant.

“Sorry.” I exaggerated my response as if I were on the playground.

The lines around her mouth relaxed. “No, I’m sorry. I’m not kidding. Five hundred. The apartment has sat empty since I renovated. I haven’t trusted anyone else to take it.”

“Trust? You met me like two days ago.”

Georgia turned for her bedroom, talking to me over her shoulder as she shuffled through her closet. “Yeah, well you’re CJ’s cousin. I trust him with everything.”

“I have to tell you,” I called back, “I half expected black walls with neon spray paint everywhere or something.”

“That’s awfully assumptive of you.” Georgia came out wearing a long black skirt and a blue t-shirt that had a faded design I wasn’t going to be caught dead staring at for too long. She was wearing flip-flops that highlighted the stark vertical difference between the two of us.

“You’ve left me no choice.” I grinned. “I met you when you were wearing short shorts and combat boots, then I’ve seen you for two nights at the bar wear basically nothing at all. Now, this...” I gestured to the most conservative outfit I’d seen her in yet. “Can you blame me for expecting
anything
but this?”

“Well, you see,” Georgia got toe-to-toe with me and lifted up on hers so she could whisper in my ear, “I’m never sure what I’m going to be from one minute to another.”

I placed my hands on her shoulders, holding her at arm’s length. “You speak in riddles.”

“Do I? Maybe you hear in riddles.” She stepped back, shoving some things into her backpack.