Chapter 10
CHAPTER 10
ARLOW
The awkwardness Calli feared would come between us never materializes. It took everything in me to walk away after that kiss. I’m not capable of staying away from her. This week, we’ve spent an evening at the bonfire, talking the late hours away, and she made me dinner a few nights ago—a thank you for the glider.
It’s just past dark when she taps on my door. “Okay,” she says, without the preamble of a hello. “I’m completely embarrassed about this but there’s some kind of mutant hopping bug in my bathroom.”
“Do you want to borrow the bee suit?” I tease.
“Very funny. It jumps like a coked up kangaroo and is almost as big. It could tackle me.” A sheepish smile is accompanied by a shrug. “Will you please kill it?”
That smile could convince me to do anything. “Come on.”
“Thank you,” she says, as I pull my front door closed and accompany her back across the driveway. “You might want to bring some bug spray or a hammer, maybe a flamethrower.”
“What’s it look like?” I’m trying to figure out what kind of bug she could be talking about.
“Like a spider fucked a cricket in a pool of radioactive material.”
I’m pretty sure what she’s dealing with is a harmless cave cricket and my suspicions are confirmed when I step into her bathroom. Calli is right behind me. Until it leaps from one end of her tub up to the sink.
“Nope,” she announces and darts back out.
To be fair, it is one of the largest ones I’ve seen. Before it can jump again, I scoop it up and carry it into the living room. “Will you get the door?” I hold up my cupped hands. “Unless you want to pet him first.”
Calli looks at me in horror. “You didn’t kill it?”
“There’s no reason to. I’ll let it go outside.”
She opens the door and steps back. “Far, far away. Maybe take it for a ride on your ATV.”
Distant lightning flashes, outlining the edges of approaching clouds as I take it out to the tree line and let it go.
“What was it?” Calli asks, standing on her bottom step as I return.
“A cave cricket. Some people call them sprickets. They can’t hurt you. They like damp places and find their way inside when we have prolonged dry periods like we have lately.”
“It’s supposed to storm all night. The bastard could’ve waited instead of interrupting my margarita night.” She grins at me. “Thanks.”
“Anytime. Margarita night, huh?”
“Silver was supposed to be bringing her best friend over. I was two drinks in when they cancelled. I thought I’d sit out here, have another and watch the storm. Do you want to join me? I also have some bourbon.”
My plans to spend the night working disintegrate. “What kind of friend would I be if I let you drink alone?”
“A boring sober one.” She leads the way back inside. I’m not a big fan of sweet drinks so I take her up on the offer of bourbon. Frowning, she holds up the nearly empty bottle. “There are only a few shots left. I thought I had more.”
“I have a bottle at home we can grab later.”
I’ve been in her cabin plenty of times, but we never usually hang out here. While she’s making her margarita, I wander around her living room. She has a nice vinyl collection, and her bookshelf shows she prefers fiction. Thrillers, mysteries, and horror novels are joined by a few romances and some poetry.
A cardboard urn sits on the far side of the fireplace mantel, but it isn’t really displayed, just shoved behind a picture of a man leaning against the hood of his car. The resemblance in the picture is hard to miss. I’m very familiar with that smile.
“Is this your dad?” I ask, as she joins me.
“Yes. About twenty years ago.”
“You smile the same as him.” The remark seems to please her. “Is he…”
She shakes her head when I gesture toward the urn. “No, he’s not gone. Those are my mother’s.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. She despised me.” The words are tossed carelessly but the weight they hold is evident. “It’s raining. Let’s sit on the porch.” We settle onto the glider, and she changes the subject. “Did you get Lee’s truck fixed?”
“We did. It was the alternator. He could’ve done it alone. I think he just wanted an audience.”
“Your company is in such demand. You poor guy,” she teases.
The sky opens up and torrential rain pulls a thick curtain around the porch. Both of us fall silent, sipping our drinks.
Calli glances over at me. “I love this.” Her eyes shine with the glaze of alcohol, but it’s not the drink she’s talking about or the rain. It’s the moment, and I know exactly how she feels. Closed off from the world, just the two of us, buzzed and surrounded by the storm and the smell of wet forest. The scent is always so much stronger after a dry period.
“Me too. It’s perfect.”
Silence resumes but something shifts in her expression after a few minutes. Both of us have a tendency to get lost in our own thoughts, but this is different.
“Hey.” My tone is soft, not jarring, but she regards me with vague surprise, as if she forgot I was there. “Are you okay?”
A forced smile dies quickly. “I’m fine. Just thinking.”
“You can talk to me, you know. If there’s something on your mind.”
Her hesitation only confirms that something is bothering her. “You asked about my dad before. I told you that I hadn’t heard from him in a while.” My nod encourages her to go on. “It’s been nearly two and a half years.”
While I don’t see my parents often, I can’t imagine having no contact with them for so long. “Did you have a falling out?”
“No, it wasn’t like that. There’s never been any animosity between us. We were close when I was younger, but he has a lot of substance issues and while he was a safe person to be around, a lot of the people he surrounded himself with weren’t. I haven’t seen him in person in ten years. He moves constantly. We always kept in touch by phone every few months. Sometimes it would be longer because he goes through phone numbers like underwear, but mine stayed the same so he’d always end up calling me. But I had to change my number, and his was already disconnected. I figured I could still find him through his sister, but by the time I tried, she was in a nursing home with severe dementia.”
The little waver in her voice breaks my heart. Her fingers wrap around mine when I take her hand, and she looks me in the eye for a second with a reticent smile. “I even reached out to my brother, Mark, that I hadn’t had contact with in about ten years to see if he’d heard from him.” Her gaze skips away as she adds, “Mark’s in prison. Dad used to call him monthly and send him stuff, but it’s been two years since he’s had any contact from him. I’ve hired a private investigator and so far, no news is good news, but the longer it takes…” She shakes her head with a sigh.
This is the most she’s told me about her family and there are about a thousand questions I want ask, but I’m not trying to upset her by prying too deep. We’ve spent hours talking about everything from music to whether the universe is really infinite, but any time her family came up, she shied away. Just tonight I’ve learned her mother hated her, her brother is an inmate, and her father is an addict. It’s clear why she chose to avoid the subject.
“Have they traced his last phone number?”
She nods and finishes her drink. “It went dormant and then was recycled. He often lived in hotels so that’s where the investigator is searching now. It doesn’t help that I’m the most impatient person in the world,” she says with a chuckle, leaning back. “And once I get stuck on something, it’s hard for me to let it go. I had a dream that brought back a childhood memory of him. I need to know he’s okay but also, I want to ask him about it.”
“It’s got to be hard not knowing.”
She glances at my hand in hers with a tiny embarrassed smile. The alcohol put holes in the wall she’s built around herself and she’s just realized what’s leaking out. She gives my hand a squeeze and releases it. “I didn’t mean to bring the mood down.”
“Don’t be silly. Do you want to tell me about the memory?”
A sudden earsplitting crack of thunder interrupts me, making us both jump and grab each other. My arm is wrapped around her, and her face is hidden against my shoulder. She peeks up at me and bursts out laughing. “I almost pissed myself.”
“That might’ve scared me sober,” I agree with a chuckle.
She shifts so she’s not facing me anymore, leaning against me while my arm remains around her. With the spell broken, I expect her to change the subject and I’m surprised when she continues.
“When I was five, we moved to a new neighborhood. My new school was a few streets away. Usually, Mom walked me to school and Dad picked me up afterward in his car. One day a snowstorm hit while I was at school. They released us early and called all the parents to come pick us up.” A soft smile stretches her lips as she reminisces. “He probably figured walking would be faster than getting the car out because the ground was already covered, and snow was coming down fast. I was so excited to walk home in it.
“The wind was blowing hard, and he kept hold of my hand, our gloves smashed together. We were meant to stay on the road that runs beside the school and pass three streets before making a left onto ours, then our house was another block down. On a good day, it was a ten or fifteen minute walk. Except he got confused in the whiteout and we turned on the street before ours. It wasn’t until we got about halfway down it that he stopped and realized the mistake.
“I was learning that a snowstorm wasn’t always as fun as it looked. I can’t remember if I complained or if he just knew my legs were exhausted from trudging through the snow, but he put me on his back. I held on while he walked us all the way to the end of the street, around the block and up the next street to our house. His sister was there with my mom, and I remember them laughing so hard when he announced we got lost.
“I don’t know why I dreamed about it, but I’d forgotten it until a few months ago. It was one day that probably wasn’t a big deal to him, but it must’ve imprinted on my young brain.” With a sigh, she leans her head on my shoulder. “I want to ask him if he remembers carrying me home in the snow.”
I tighten my arm around her in a half hug. “I hope you find him soon. If there’s anything I can do…”
“You’re sweet,” she murmurs. “Thank you.”
It’s funny how you never know what’s going to make a vivid impression and become a nostalgic memory. It just happens. There’s no doubt in my mind that this will be a sweet moment I look back on, sitting with Calliope tucked against my side, wrapped in the darkness and music of the storm.
“What are your parents like?” she asks after a few quiet minutes.
“They’re great. Mom was a nurse and Dad was an illustrator. They’re both retired now and living in the same house I grew up in. My younger sister lives next to them with her husband and kids. They help her a lot with the babies—my sister had twins not quite a year ago. I don’t see them often, but I talk to them every week. There’s usually at least one baby screaming in the background.”
Calli grins up at me. “Not a fan of kids?”
“Kids are fun. As long as they can go home.”
She chuckles and drains the rest of her drink. “It’s safe to say there are no little broody beekeepers running around out there then?”
“Broody beekeeper?” It beats Daddy Long Legs, I guess. “First of all, I do not brood.”
“Whatever you say.” I’m glad to hear her tone has lightened again.
“And secondly, I’ve had a vasectomy so no accidental babies for me.”
“I don’t want kids either. I’m enjoying my freedom. Did your dad teach you to draw?”
“He did when I was a kid, but we have pretty different styles.”
Calli tilts her head, peeking over at me. “Will you show me one of your drawings sometime?”
“Will you take back that broody remark?” I tease.
Her lips press together as she pretends to think about it. “Mm, quiet introspective beekeeper doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, but I’ll think about it. It’s an upgrade from where you started at Graveyard Creeper.”
“Okay, Peach Bandit.”
A smile leaps to her lips. “That could be a children’s book. The Adventures of Graveyard Creeper and Peach Bandit.”
“Peach Bandit looking for severed limbs in a cooler is probably a little intense for a kid’s book.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” she giggles, getting to her feet. “I need a refill. How about you?”
“You’re out of bourbon. Make your drink and we can go to my place. I’ll let you see a sketchbook while you’re drunk so you’ll be scathingly honest.”
I follow her inside and wait while she blends the ingredients for her margarita. “Whoops, made way too much,” she mumbles. “Oh well.” She grabs a big glass and pours the drink in, filling it to the top. “Future Calli is going to hate me tomorrow.”
When she excuses herself to go to the bathroom, I sneak back to her living room, pull out my phone and take a picture of the photo of her father.
“Ready,” she announces, returning a moment later, and we start toward my place.
The rain has let up but not for long judging by the ring of dark, lightning filled clouds around us. The temperature is dropping quickly, so we forgo the porch for my living room.
She sits beside me on the couch, scooting closer when she sees I have the sketchbook in my hand. It’s an older one that contains mostly preliminary sketches of landscapes. Some trees and flowers. The drawings of her are tucked safely away in another room. I’m not sure how she’d feel about them.
“Arlow!” Her sudden exclamation makes me blink and raise my eyebrows. “These are fantastic!” She takes her time flipping through the pages. “Scribbles,” she grumbles. “You’re ridiculous.”
The warmth that grows in my chest as she admires my work should be concerning. I’ve never cared much what anyone thought of my art. It’s an outlet for me and an income, not something I do to impress, but the way she looks up at me with her mouth slightly open in awe affects me more than any praise or criticism I’ve ever received.
“You’re an artist.” After a moment of thought, she adds, “Your unconventional job?”
“I sell some prints and originals.” All my work is under a pseudonym. She won’t be able to find anything online if she tries to look.
It’s not the sketches of trees or flowers that catch her eye. The drawing she stops on is one of my favorites, one I never tried to sell. I couldn’t imagine anyone else would see what I did, but as she gazes at it, something about it grabs her.
“Will you tell me about this one?”
With a nod, I take another drink of bourbon, letting the buzz loosen my tongue. Talking about my thought process for drawings always makes me sound crazy. “It’s the storm drain in the curb at the end of my parents’ street.” She scoots closer to me and rests the sketchbook on one of her knees and one of mine. “Whenever it would rain too much too fast, one end of our street would fill up with water. All the dirt, tree limbs, leaves, and litter would get caught on the grates.”
When I hesitate to think about my next words, she waits patiently, silently. “There was nothing wrong with the drain. It was doing its best, what it was designed to do, but the burden of the trash being thrown into it was too much.” She nods as I run my fingertip over the empty Coke can, a plastic bag, a clump of leaves. “When I was a teenager, I saw something…relatable in it. In being overwhelmed, I guess. After every hard rain, I’d sit on the curb and watch the water struggle its way through until I cleared away the trash.”
“You drew this as a teenager?”
“No, I drew it from memory. It kept coming back to me.”
“Like the snowstorm with my dad?” she says softly.
“That’s a sweet memory, a significant one. This was literally watching water pour through trash. I know it sounds crazy. It’s not the easiest thing to explain, but objects or moments can stand out, shine in some way that sets them apart, no matter how mundane they might be. That’s what I like to draw.” Like to draw might be a bit of an understatement. It feels more like a compulsion.
Her lips tilt up. “The things that shine?”
“I know it sounds like bullshit,” I chuckle.
“No.” She shakes her head and looks me in the eye without a hint of amusement. “I understand. I have one of those moments too. I just don’t have the talent or skill to draw it.”
Now I’m intrigued. “Will you tell me what it is?”
“A broken orange juice bottle on a balcony.” It’s her turn to look a little chagrined. The alcohol has both of us opening up tonight. “You can’t tell me that’s not just as odd as your storm drain. I’ve thought about it, remembered it, since I was seven years old and have never really understood why.” Her tongue wets her lips. “We were at Dad’s apartment, a little two room hole in the wall with a sagging balcony. I couldn’t sleep. There was no TV or cell phone or anything to occupy myself with. My brother was asleep and so was Dad—or passed out, maybe, because he wouldn’t wake up when I tried.
“I was afraid and experiencing loneliness in a way I hadn’t before. Things were awful at Mom’s house, the divorce was recent and the loss of having Dad in our daily lives was still a fresh wound. It was the longest night ever. Alone with bad thoughts. Finally, the sun came up and I was so happy to see it. I grabbed my little bottle of orange juice from the fridge and went out on the balcony to watch the day come. When I set it on the ledge, it tipped off and shattered by my feet. I wasn’t upset but I just stared at it for so long. It’s a moment that’s always stuck with me.”
She sips her drink, thinking for a second, then continues, “I think it was the dichotomy of it. The crushing despair of thoughts with no distraction, a dark feeling like it was soaking into me, then the relief that the sun brought. The new experience of being up outside alone at the crack of dawn.” Shrugging, she sits back. “But mostly I remember the moment staring at a broken bottle on the balcony. The thin sun catching in the jagged edges of the glass, how dew dampened everything, the smell of the air. Almost like I could step back into my second grade self for a few seconds.” She tilts her head to look at me. “I’ve never told anyone that because it sounds so odd, to repeatedly picture a broken bottle for over twenty years.”
“Like watching litter in a storm drain,” I reply, nodding. My chest is tight with two realizations.
She sees the world like I do, like an artist, and I could fall in love with her too goddamned easily.