Candlemoth: A Holy City Romance (5 page)

              “Welcome to Charleston, boo,” he said.

              “Oh no you don’t.  You are going to help me get her inside, at least.  And then I’ll call you an Uber.”

By the time we got Hazel settled in and Beren had ubered off into the morning, the day was golden and hot.  Down the street, beneath Hominy Grill’s famous mural of a smiling blonde holding out a plate of buttery grits, a hopeful line had already formed.

Grits and eggs calling...

But I was too wiped for even that siren call.

              I laid around all morning, reading and dozing on my sofa.  It was four in the afternoon when Hazel wandered into the kitchen. 

              “Good morning, sunshine!” Hazel said.  Her hair was wet from the shower, and she was wearing my little pink satin Victoria’s Secret robe.  I loved that she’d just made herself right at home.  She rubbed her face sleepily.  “Or anyway, it was morning.  What time is it?”

              “Don’t you try to distract me,” I said, laughing.  “Who was that dude last night?”

Hazel flopped onto the sofa dramatically.  “Don’t tell Beren, okay, but he’s… kind of... this guy?  I’ve been seeing?”

“I, uh, kind of gathered that.”  I stuck my nose back into my book.

“I knew he was married, but he said they were separated, and I don’t know, it was so fucking stupid but I just couldn’t…”

              “Stop?”  I offered.  My place was tiny, really just a bedroom and a kitchen that opened out into the living room, and I could smell the minty smell of my shampoo in Hazel’s hair as she raked it back into a ponytail.

“Yeah…that,” Hazel said.  “I’m not so good at that.  I love
love
, you know?  But it’s over now, I swear.  Finito, there, see?”  She held out her phone to show me.  “I deleted his number.”

“You don’t have to prove anything to me,” I said.  “I just don’t want to see you get hurt like that.”

“I was pretty bad last night, huh?”

“Pretty bad,” I admitted.  “I think you broke some of his windows.”

“Oh god.”

“And keyed his car.”

She sat up.  “Shut the door!  I did not!”

“Annnd you definitely woke up the neighbors…!”

“Oh
god…”
Hazel said, her head in her hands.

“But if what you wanted was to get him and his wife to have an adult conversation, I’m sure it worked.  They don’t live together, I’m guessing?”

“No, dude, they’re long distance or something,” she said.

“But… if you knew he was married, why did you get so upset?” I said, instantly regretting it.

Hazel’s face closed off.  “I already feel shitty about it.  Let’s talk about something else.” 

She looked around at my apartment as if seeing it for the first time.  Her eyes seized on the photograph on my bookshelf. 

It was one of my favorite pictures in the entire world. 

Me and Steve running into the ocean.  We’re holding hands and sun-drenched, laughing, and I’m looking over my shoulder at the camera.  You can just make out the color of my eyes, and they match the brightest points in the splashing waves. 

When I think of home, I think of that photograph.  Home isn’t really about place, you know.  Home is a feeling.

              “Tell me about your dad,” Hazel said.

              A couple years ago just that word, “Dad,” would have made me flinch.  I’d never really had a dad until Steve came along.  I was seventeen and a half by then, almost to the day.  I still get the shivers when I think how long it took for me to warm up to him. 

              Because what usually happened for me in the foster system went something like this: 

I’d get a placement somewhere.  I’d do my best to fit in, but somehow I never could.  And so I kept having to start over with one ‘family’ after another.  One school after another.  Like I said, I’d buried my heart deep, but it still stung every time I got cycled.  What was so wrong with me that no one wanted to keep me?  

I was three when I first got dumped into the foster system.  The cops had found me on a raid, an unexpected Easter egg tucked out back of a drug den.  My parents got busted; I got sent straight to hell.

See, most people want to adopt a baby as young as possible, so there’s less risk the kid has picked up “bad habits”, especially when siblings are involved.  Which I can understand, I guess.  It’s sort of the same theory that goes into adopting a puppy instead of a full-grown dog.  (Although I’ve promised myself that if I ever get a dog, I’m going to march up to the desk and ask for the one who’s been locked up there the longest, and give her the best life a dog could have.) 

Anyway, I wasn’t a baby.  I was three, and I couldn’t bring my heart out for show and tell on command, like my pretend mommies and daddies wanted me to.  Once or twice a wife even got weirdly jealous of the attention she thought her husband was giving me.

So they’d always end up recycling me back into the system, hoping for someone who was a little bit ‘easier’.  A sweet little girl who’d let them braid her hair, maybe.  Who giggled and came up with cute questions, and could say “I love you” back.  Like a parrot. 

Yeah.  I was missing that piece.

              But Steve was missing a piece, too. His wife had died young, from breast cancer.  You know about swans and foxes, how they mate for life?  Steve was like that.  He had absolutely zero interest in other women after he lost his Charlotte.

              But here’s the thing.  Steve and Charlotte didn’t have kids.  And he really, really wanted one.  Steve always says that the first time he saw my photograph, he knew I was his daughter, and from that moment until I was standing on his porch with my bag in my hand he had his heart in his mouth. 

              Steve believes I’ve
always
been his daughter.  That we were meant to find one another on earth.  I don’t know.  It’s pretty to think so. 

Hazel was still waiting for her answer.   “
Tell me about your dad.”

              “He likes hot dogs,” I said.

              She almost spit her coffee out.  “Wow- what!  “
He likes hot dogs,”
-
 
haha, well, my dad does, too.  I’m just asking because, you know, Beren kind of said something, and I wondered what it was like for you.  Before he came along and things got better, you know.”

“I was used to it,” I said, shrugging.  “You want some breakfast?”

Hazel followed me into the kitchen.  “Marilyn Monroe was in the foster system, too, right?  When she was called Norma Jean.”

“Yeah,” I said, carefully, knowing Hazel meant well.  “And people think that maybe that was maybe why she became so...Marilyn?  You do hear about that happening to kids in the system.  They get touched, or they’re trying their hardest to please their new parents however they know best.  It wasn’t like that for me, though.  I just kept my head down, you know?  And Steve-” I looked at Hazel and realized she’d brought up Norma Jean to draw me out about him.  I grinned at her.  “Geez, you should be a therapist or something,” I said.

“Maybe.”  She winked.  “Maybe I already am.”
              “You should be.”  I nudged her playfully.  “I don’t know, Steve really went out of his way to make sure I knew his home was my home, too.  I mean, he had clear rules and expectations, but he knew how to give me my space, and he just- when Steve decides he loves somebody, I mean, he would lie down in the road for them if he thought it would help.”

“So Steve sounds awesome.”

“Yeah.  He is.”

“What’s he do?”

“He’s a firefighter.  It was great because he always had these long stretches of time off, and we’d go on long road trips together.  Greasy spoons, hiking, campfires, you know.  The whole thing, just wandering around, seeing stuff.  It’s nice to be able to relax and be yourself around somebody, and know that they’ll love you no matter what you do.  Even when they get upset about a bad grade or missing curfew, they just- care.  They don’t stop caring when you disappoint them.”  I smiled to myself.  “He saved me in a lot of ways.  I mean, he’s the kind of dad where you can go and sit on the porch together, and maybe he doesn’t even really say much at all, you know?  But just being there with him and thinking out loud, all of a sudden you can figure all this stuff out you never would have been able to on your own.   He brings out the best in people.  Because he makes them feel safe.  He’s my fucking hero.”

“He sounds hot.  A firefighter, huh…?”

I laughed.  “Right, I forgot you’re into older men.  But he’s taken,” I said.  I didn’t mention that Charlotte was dead, though.

“Too bad.”  Hazel lay back again, twiddling with the bathrobe.  “Dude, I don’t know if you even noticed, but all the good guys in Charleston?  Married.  Everybody who’s single has Peter Pan syndrome, or else they’re Major Malfunction.  And to make things worse, it’s a 3:1 ratio, girls to guys.”  She glanced at me sideways.  “Remember what you said to me when we first met?”

“Uh, that I liked your hair?”

“No, dude, although that was quite awesome as well.  I was slobbering over some rando dude, and you couldn’t see what I was so hot and bothered about.  You said you just didn’t think that way- that it made everything so much easier, because you could get tons of stuff done?”

I didn’t remember saying that.

“Well, I thought it was the coolest,” Hazel said. She looked down at her phone.  “Hey, Vanessa says for you to pick up your phone, she wants you to pick up a shift.  Someone’s asking for you specifically.”  She tipped her head thoughtfully.  “Huh.  Never heard of that happening before.”

“When?”

“Later today,” Hazel said, still studying her phone.

              “Tell her I’ll do it,” I said, without thinking.  That was something Steve taught me- never pass up a restroom, or a chance to make scrilla.  “Scrilla,” that’s what he called money.  “Always save up for a rainy day,” that was one of his corny Dad sayings.  I loved them.

“Seriously, you sure?” Hazel said, even though she was already texting Vanessa back.

“I mean, why not…”

She shrugged elaborately.  Too late, I noticed the sneaky grin that had threaded across her pretty face.  “Oh, I dunno… because it’s at the
Calhouns?”

========== C
hapter
3 ==========================================

I went stiff as a board, light as a feather.

“What?” I said.  “You’re kidding!”  

“Too late, I already told her yes!”  Hazel danced away, holding her phone high above

her head, laughing as I tried to grab it from her.  “Haha, go on, Lily, just take the shift!  What’s the worst that can happen?”

              “Exactly!” I said.  “What’s the worst that can happen- my life is ruined?”

              “Oh, fft, that’s not true.  You can handle anything.  Hey, you got any cereal or anything?  I’m dying here, practically wasting away.  Feed me already, sheesh.”

              Somehow, at Divine Catering everyone already knew about Hazel’s little misadventure.  Later, Beren swore up and down that he hadn’t said anything, and I thought again about what he’d told me about Charleston being just a tiny town.  News traveled fast.

              Another reason I needed to be careful around Ry.

              Chef was the most relaxed I’d ever seen him.  He wasn’t even working, just hanging out in the kitchen while the baker put together a tray of frozen cookie dough for me. 

“We got all kinds of flavors,” he said, ticking them off on his thick fingers, “snickerdoodles, chocolate chip, red velvet, macadamia nut… you listening, Lily?  It’s okay, doesn’t matter, because this shit is so easy a robot could do it.  You’re in, you’re out.  Bake the cookies at 350 for 8-10 minutes, let them cool on the tray for a couple minutes more.  Scrape em onto the serving platter their butler will have ready for you, and you’re good to go.  Just do a couple rounds for them, pace it a little, and when you’re all done come back here.  You can leave the dishes for the dish dogs, too.”  He looked at me expectantly, and I knew I was supposed to thank him for paying me to do the easiest work ever.

              I could hardly nod.

              Chef clapped a lobster red hand heavily on my shoulder and squeezed it.  I could smell his cigarettes.  “Kiddo, you’re all beat up, huh?  Lemme tell you something I wish someone had told me.  You are the sum of the five people you spend the most time with.”  He waggled his finger in my face.  “Hazel’s not a good influence, all right?  I know, you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do.” 

Finally I looked at him.  “I think you’re wrong.  Hazel’s great.  She just feels things more deeply than most people do, and frankly, that’s something I admire.” 

Chef gave me a weird look, tweezing me with his eyes.  For a moment I wondered if he’d get angry.  Suddenly, he threw his hands up, laughing.  “All right, all right, whatever.  Get your cute butt out of here.  And take a smile with you!”