Love on the Ledge (7 page)

“When did you decide this?” my mom asks through polite, gritted teeth.

I shrug. “Just now. I’m going to get my masters in Psychology and Children’s Development.”

Xandro looks overwhelmed. “Well, if you change your mind—”

“I’ll let you know.” I take the open bottle of wine chilling in a bowl and pour myself a glass. I can practically feel the steam blowing out of my mother’s ears.

“You know what would be nice?” Aunt Salomé asks. “If we all went on a family dinner before the wedding. What’s the place that’s doing the catering?”

I cough wine onto Xandro’s blazer. “Oh, God. I’m so sorry. Hiccups.”

He smiles through his teeth, but the little vein on his forehead throbs. He takes the dozen napkins getting shoved in his direction. “It’s fine. I have to go to the cleaners tomorrow anyway.”

“Why don’t we have a barbeque instead?” I suggest. “You know how loud we can get, and they’re not really equipped for a big group. Or better yet, a wine tasting!”

“Count me in,” Leti says.

“Great.” How is it possible that my heart feels like it’s pumping in every part of my body at once?

“Of course you’re invited, Xandro. You and Sky should catch up over lunch.”

“We’re having lunch now,” I point out.

Xandro checks his watch—a sleek silver Movado. “Actually, that would be great. I really have to go, but I’ll pick you up tomorrow at noon.”

“I can’t—” I start to say, but my mother cuts me off.

“She’d love to.”

Xandro takes my hand and presses it to his lips. “I can’t wait to see you again, Sky.”

When he leaves, I sink into my chair. Las Viejas talk amongst themselves and wonder what our children will look like. They comment on what a nice young man he is, and isn’t it nice what he made of himself. No one, not a single person asks for my opinion.

Leti comes over and takes a seat beside me. “They bet you would agree to go out with him.”

Yunior smiles smugly and holds his hand out to Leti. She slaps a couple of twenties into his open palm. I snatch them up.

“Hey!”

“Easy now. Leti still won.” I count a hundred bucks and divide them between her and me. “Technically,
technically
, I wasn’t the one who agreed.”

Later that night, my phone rings. When I see the number, I get one of those hot flashes that covers your body from your toes to the crown of your head. I hate that his name has that effect on me still.

Bradley.

Well, it’s just his number. Even though I deleted it, I still know it by heart.

I changed the old song that was attached to it—“Born to be My Baby.” I know, cheese much? But that was our song. The first time he sang it for me was on a drive to his parents’ New Hampshire cabin. The road was rainy, and all we had was a gray sky and a staticky radio. So he turned it off and looked at me with those baby blue eyes and started singing.

Now his number plays the generic phone chirping.

Sometimes, I want to be a little weak. I want to pick up the phone or return the text message. There’s nothing wrong with a little weakness. It means my heart’s still working even though I’d like to think I’m dead inside, that I’m made of steel. I’m not. I’m flesh and blood, and a little part of me will always want Bradley because the hurt can’t completely erase the good.

But tonight, I let the champagne wash away the weakness. I lean back in my chair and embrace the lonely night. I opt for a little bit of steel, and let the phone ring out.

I skip breakfast and lie in bed with the sun streaming through my window, reliving the last couple of days. The one image that keeps resurfacing is Hayden’s face when I left him on the beach. It could also be because the roofers are here. I can hear their boots on the roof, their hammers against nails. I know if I look out the window I’ll see Hayden working on the gazebo. Every day, my aunts and cousins bring him lemonade in exchange for one of his brilliant smiles.

That’s quickly replaced by Xandro’s chemically white one when I remember we’re having lunch today. If I was going to be forced to go on a date with someone I’m not interested in, then why don’t I just go out with someone I’m extremely attracted to?
Sky Lopez, you did this to yourself
, I think. I roll over in my bed and shove my head in a pillow.

“Wakey wakey!”

I turn to catch a ball of blonde hair cannonballing on me.

“Ah, you dick.” I roll over, holding my side.

“See, you don’t like it when someone wakes you up, do you?” she asks. River climbs up the fluffy mattress and cuddles up to my side. Her long legs are golden and soft. River has a way of making herself comfortable really quickly.

“Your alarm isn’t scheduled to go off for another five hours.”

“I never actually went to sleep,” she says. She presses her head in the pillow to avoid the question. That’s when I smell the cigarettes and whiskey on her. “I did something you’re going to love me for.”

I groan and pull the cover over my head. “River,” I say by way of warning. “What did you do?”

“Hey!” River takes her pillow and slams me over the head with it. “I do great things for you. I was hanging out at this house party and I met a guy who’s a chef. I told him we’d go to his restaurant and check it out for the wedding.”

“That’s amazing. Damn, but I have lunch with Xandro. I just want to get it over with. Thanks for bailing on me yesterday, by the way.”

River holds her hands up defensively. “Listen, there was no way I was getting involved in that mess. I’m already in the catering stuff. We’ll go after your lunch.”

I open my closet and pull out a maxi dress that requires no effort. Maxi dresses are basically muumuus with better fabric and colors.

River bats her sultry lashes at me. “I also happened to be outside when a strapping, shirtless man gave me this and asked me to deliver it to the Sleeping Beauty who slept so hard, she didn’t hear the rocks tapping at her window last night.”

“Wait, what?”

She grabs me by the shoulders. “Sky, don’t be an idiot. I love you, but I’m not going to watch you torture yourself for the rest of the summer. You’ve helped me when I needed you most. Now I’m going to do the same for you, in a different way.”

She shoves the round white thing in my hands, presses a kiss on my cheek, and runs before I have time to react. I hold the white disk in my hand and turn it over. It’s a sand dollar. Smooth and white with black marker scrawled across the surface. At first, I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking at. But my heart reacts before my mind does. My stomach flutters and my chest gives a little squeeze. The black marker spells Hayden and his phone number.

Margarita Grill is my favorite place off-season. They have bands come and play, and the locals come out of hiding after the Manhattenites and reality TV types leave. If the waitress didn’t recognize me from my solitary lunches, we’d have to wait an hour for a table. She appraises Xandro and gives me two thumbs up.

I pull out my chair and sit across from where Xandro is already scanning the menu. Because of how crowded it gets during the summer, they add extra tables, which puts me back to back with the person sitting behind me.

“What’s good here?” Xandro asks.

“The Mexican street corn is great. It’s not
actually
street, but they try their best.”

He smiles politely and nods. “I don’t eat corn or cheese.”

I laugh because I think he’s joking, but when he looks confused, I realize he’s not kidding. Not one bit. Instead, I’m the joke. I’m the girl ambushed into a “lunch date” with a guy who probably remembers me from my time with braces.

I order a glass of red wine and tap water.

Xandro asks for a skinny margarita and switches out tap water for bottled sparkling water.

“Red wine isn’t very good for your teeth,” he says playfully.

I lick the front of my teeth and take the fat red wine glass the waitress places in front of me. “None of it is actually good for you. That’s not the point of drinking booze.”

“What’s the point?” He sits back, arms languishing on the armrests with his tall, skinny margarita in hand.

“The point is to get a buzz.”

He shrugs, not agreeing or disagreeing. From the way he looks at his cuticles, then smoothes the wrinkles on his pants, to the way he settles his smoldering dark eyes back on me, I know there’s something cooking in his carefully styled pompadour.

“So, how’ve you been since I saw you yesterday?” I say, placing the napkin across my legs and sitting back. “Are you liking the neighborhood?”

He smirks at my cheekiness. “I’m great, actually. I’ve always wanted to rent a house out here for the summer. I spend most summers at my place in Florida, but I gave it to my mom two years ago.”

“Yeah, must be a pain to bring over girls when your mom’s home.”

He laughs into his drink, nearly snorting tequila. “You’ve gotten really blunt.”

“How do you know I wasn’t always?”

He turns his head from side to side. “I remember a little girl with braces that sparkled from across the hallway. She wore a long braid down her back, and the kids in the building called her Pocahontas. She wore men’s t-shirts and leggings before it was cool to wear leggings.”

So he does remember me. I take a long sip from my wine glass. “I still can’t bring myself to watch Pocahontas because of those kids.”

“I can’t bring myself to eat strawberries,” he says a little more quietly.

“Why did they call you that?” I ask. “I’m sorry I brought it up, but that’s the first thing that came to my head.”

“No, I’ve gotten over it,” he says, not looking up from his lap for a few seconds. “My mom put something red in my uniform whites. They came out pink. You know the kind of kids we grew up with. They hounded me every day, calling me Strawberry. My mother couldn’t afford new socks or pants until the next paycheck, but the damage was done.”

“The kids in the building were pretty terrible.”

“I hated that place,” he tells me. “I promised myself that I’d never let my kids grow up like that.”

“You turned out fine,” I say. “So did I. Sometimes you can have all the money in the world, go to the best school, live in the best neighborhoods, and the people can be just as shitty as the poor side of town.”

He shrugs. “Doesn’t hurt to not go hungry.”

I answer with a sip of wine. “Well, we’re the adults now. It’s our turn to take care of our mothers.”

“Most of the women I meet don’t understand that about me. Not you, though. We come from the same kind of place, and we got ourselves out of that. But enough of the past. Right now, I want you to tell me about yourself. You said you’re a nurse.”

I nod, fidgeting with the corner of the menu. “Yep. I did a year at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.”

I wonder what else my mother told him. The idea that this stranger, quasi-stranger, knows everything about my life makes me want to break into hives. I let the last drops of wine coat my tongue. The waitress comes around and takes our order.

Another round of drinks. I order guacamole and steak tacos with extra queso, and he orders a shrimp salad, hold the croutons and cheese, and the dressing on the side.

“I have a couple of classmates who went into medicine. It’s the best kind of job security because there will always be sick people.”

I try to be my polite date-self but can’t help making a face. “Or, you know, it’s a good way to
help
people.”

He chuckles, and then I remember that I hate his laugh. “Oh, you’re one of those.”

“Excuse me?”

“Relax. I just mean everyone has their reasons for choosing a career in medicine. The hours are long, so long that it almost doesn’t make sense to have a family because the chances are more likely in favor of divorce.”

I think of Bradley’s parents. They were both doctors. They might as well be divorced since they both have not-so-secret affairs and sleep in separate rooms. Did I really think Bradley and I could have something considering where he came from?

“You must love being a doctor.”

He smirks. “I love being a plastic surgeon.”

Because of course he does.

“I learned from the best doctors in Florida, but everyone wants to go to Florida to get their work done. At the beginning of the year, I decided to open up my own office in the city with my college roommate, Dr. Gold. Gonzales and Gold just had a good ring to it, don’t you think? He specializes in implants for both sexes. I specialize in faces.”

As gross as I find cosmetic surgery, I’m oddly interested in the way he talks about it. “That’s the strangest thing I’ve heard all day.”

The waitress sets down my guac on the table, and Xandro helps himself without asking. I want to remind him that the chips are made out of corn, but I decide not to.

“Ever since I was little I loved to draw perfect faces.”

I shove a giant helping of creamy guacamole into my mouth.

“I’m not talking about the Golden Ratio or that symmetry bullshit, but more along the lines of helping people achieve the person they want to see when they look in a mirror. Everyone has that person. Though there are exceptions.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I turn people away when I think they don’t need work. For instance, if you came into my office and wanted to change something about your face, I’d decline.”

I’ve met surgeons who tell me I might want to shave a centimeter or so off the slight bump on the top of my nose, and maybe for a little while I believed it. In a weird way, Xandro is giving me a compliment.

“Well, thank you for not taking my hard-earned money for something so frivolous.”

He smiles. “I mean it, Sky. You are exceptionally beautiful. I have clients who would kill for your eyes. It’s a particular shade of green and gold. Your forehead is not too big or small. Your cheekbones are perfection and your jaw line is incredibly defined. Then there’s your lips. I could try a thousand times and not get the exact fullness of your lips. Your mother was right, you’re just as beautiful as I remember.”

Part of me wants to take my face and put a paper bag over it. It’s not that I don’t think I’m attractive. It’s that I hate being analyzed. Still, since I’ve deprived myself of a shred of romance all summer, I can’t help but flutter all over. It has nothing to do with him. Words have a power all their own.