Surface Tension (13 page)

I leaned back against the flowered futon and closed my eyes. I had to shut some of it out. Too many things were happening at once. Collazo was probably really pissed and even more suspicious since I hadn’t gone to give my statement that day.

The air seemed to swirl with the sweet coconut smell of B.J.’s skin, and I felt the feathery tickle where the hairs on his legs brushed against my thighs. Part of me was wondering what it would feel like to reach out and touch those legs, and then I felt ashamed for thinking about sex when he was telling me that Neal, the last man I had slept with, was possibly dead.

Neal dead? I refused to believe it, but my only proof was the fact that he had robbed me of my life’s savings and then rather viciously trashed my home. If my version of what happened these past couple of days was true, it also looked like he was a killer as well as a thief. What had happened out there? The girl had the gun. Had he killed her in self-defense?

“There wasn’t that much blood on the deck . . . I saw it. I could smell the blood in the wheelhouse. I never knew what blood smelled like before.”

“Seychelle, I think you need some rest.”

“But see, even if it was his blood, he could still be alive, and I don’t know which is worse, thinking that he’s dead, or believing that this guy, this guy I’d really loved . . . could do that to that girl.” I shivered suddenly and saw the hairs on my forearms lifting off the flesh. “Am I that bad a judge of character, B.J., that I was in love with a murderer?” I rubbed my hands hard across the skin on my forearms. “He’s out there, B.J., I know he is. He probably doesn’t know where to turn.... Maybe, if guys like those creeps Ely and I met tonight are after him, he wants to stay ‘dead,’ to disappear. You know, living with Neal had become impossible. God knows, there were a few times I swore I’d like to kill him myself. Don’t tell Collazo that. But even after we’d split up, after it had gotten real ugly between us, I’d always felt he would be there for me if I needed him.” B.J.’s eyes seemed to draw the words out of me. No matter how much I wanted to stop talking and forget, each time I looked at B.J., I began again. “It’s like he’s two people, B.J. On one hand, he’s this gentle, wonderful man who’s funny and fun and a great sailor but sometimes there is this jet of anger that spurts out of him like one of those cheap fireworks. It scared me, but I never stopped caring for him. You can’t just turn that off. It was enough, though, to make me know I had to leave him. That was the hardest thing. I’d hear all the gossip about him and that girl down at the Downtowner. I mean, I was the one who pushed him away, the one who wanted it over, so why did it hurt so damn much to think of him with somebody else?” I asked the question of the walls, afraid to look at B.J., afraid of what was welling up inside. “Now, no matter which way this turns out, I’m afraid I’ve lost him, and living in a world without him in it would hurt even more.”

I tried rolling my eyes up, looking at the ceiling so the tears wouldn’t spill out and give me away, but I had to blink finally and my eyes overflowed.

“Seychelle, you’re tired, you—”

“No, no, it’s not that, it’s just . . .” Just what? I didn’t even know myself, only that I was suddenly overcome with such a profound sadness, I couldn’t control my sobs. B.J. wrapped his arms around me, but all I was aware of for what seemed like hours was the wet T-shirt fabric pressing against my face and the gut-wrenching sobs that racked my body. I was snorting and gulping and hiccuping, trying to get air as I released this huge black ball of emotion that I didn’t even know had been inside me.

Finally, I peeled my face off B.J.’s soaked shirt and took a couple of swipes at my eyes. I had felt so warm leaning against his body; as long as I’d known him, he had radiated heat as though he glowed with a perpetual sunburn.

“It’s a good thing I don’t wear any makeup or I would have made a worse mess of that shirt.” I pushed the fabric around a little on his chest. I suddenly felt intensely aware of a familiar achy squeeze between my legs.

He pushed some stray hairs back from my face and just looked at me without saying a word. No wonder every woman goes nuts over this guy, I thought. And I’d always been so convinced I’d never be one of them.

“I guess I’ve looked better huh?”

He smiled. “Yeah.”

Oh, thanks, I thought. That’s what I get for being friends, buddies with the guy. Instead of romance, I get honesty. What truly aroused woman wants that?

Then with his fingers he lightly traced the features on my face, his feathery touch gliding over my nose, eyebrows, cheeks, and lips. Our eyes remained locked, the corners of his eyes crinkled in a playful smile. When his touch reached my neck and slid down, then back up to my hairline, I couldn’t suppress the shudder.

And then he kissed me. It was no just-between-buddies kiss on the cheek. It was one of those you-don’t-even-remember-what-planet-you’re-on kisses.

Suddenly, a high-pitched yowl filled my ears and claws dug into the back of my head and neck. I cried out and swatted with my right arm at the thing that was attacking me. My hand struck soft fur, and then claws raked the back of my hand.

“Savai’i,” B.J. said softly, “stop that, you silly cat.” He stood and lifted the animal off my back. She immediately started purring in his arms.

I cradled my right hand. Three long lines oozed red. B.J. stroked the top of the cat’s head.

“
Silly
cat? That’s it? Aren’t you even going to throw her out of the house or anything?” I held out my hand for him to see. “She attacked me, B.J.”

He laughed softly. “You can’t blame a cat for being a cat. We’d better get some antibiotic cream on that.”

“But she . . .” I knew I was being unreasonable, but it made me mad as hell that he was stroking the cat’s head instead of mine.

B.J. dropped Savai’i to the ground outside the front door, closed and latched the screen door, and turned to me. “Relax, Seychelle, she’s just a cat. You’re tired.” He disappeared into the bathroom, and I could hear him rummaging around in the medicine cabinet. He came out a few moments later with a small white tube.

I knew I was blowing this out of proportion, but a part of me had been afraid. He rubbed the cream into the back of my hand. He was smiling, probably even laughing at me, but I refused to meet his eyes.

He went into the back bedroom and came out with a pile of linens. “Do you want some help pulling out the futon?” he asked.

I shook my head.

“Good night.” He disappeared into his bedroom and closed the door. I heard him moving around in there, then he went into the bathroom, and I could hear him brushing his teeth, humming to himself.

I didn’t pull out the futon and make up the bed until it had grown quiet back there. I turned out the light and undressed, wearing only panties as I slipped between the cool sheets. I felt hot and lifted my hair so my neck could press against the smooth pillow. The curtainless window faced north into the little courtyard. Between two Australian pines, I could see a three-quarter moon already angling toward the western sky. I was exhausted, but I felt I’d never fall asleep. Every nerve in my body felt like it had OD’d on No-Doz. The surf sounds pounded and hissed outside the screen door, and I wondered for a while if that was what it sounded like to an unborn child floating in her mother’s womb.
Boom. Sshh. Boom. Sshh.

I listened, trying to hear something, any kind of sound, from B.J.’s room. I fell asleep, finally, still listening.

IX

When I opened my eyes, the bedroom door was open and the apartment felt empty. From the angle of the sunlight, I judged I’d slept past eight. I got up and pulled on my clothes. Then I realized the surfboard was missing. I wandered out to look for B.J.

I expected the sunlight to be bright, and I was prepared to squint, but the sight of the Sands Motel in daylight was not something I could have prepared for. Apparently, since my last visit, the owner had decided to paint the place. It looked like he’d chosen his color scheme from a canvas in a Little Haiti art gallery. The walls were bright pink, the eaves and the plaster sea horses orange, and the balcony banisters around the sundeck turquoise. The rest of the concrete, the picnic tables, and the piles of coral rock around the empty planters had been left natural gray, mottled with black mildew spots.

The breeze was light out of the east and the sky nearly cloudless. The walk from the Shiftless Sands to the beach was less than a block, past the other motel and efficiency apartment rentals with names like the Oceanside Hideaway and California Dream Inn. None of them was nearly as tacky as the Sands, and their parking lots were filled with traveling cars. The narrow asphalt lane deadended at the beach, and a vacant lot filled with tangled sea grape trees was echoing with the competing songs of mockingbirds, green parrots, and finches.

When I reached the sand, it was easy to pick out B.J. in the handful of surfers sitting on their boards, floating over the smaller swells, waiting for the perfect wave. His sleek but muscled brown body and black hair stood out among the slight and slender blond boys. He was the only one without a rash guard or wet suit, even in the March water that most Floridians found quite chilly. The other surfers seemed to watch him, taking their cues from him. When he started to paddle, selecting a certain wave, the others followed, trusting his judgment, but keeping out of his way.

I walked down to the water’s edge, arriving just as B.J. kicked out, abandoning his wave to the sharp shore break, and he waved at me. I nodded in return, then turned south, heading toward the Dania pier. I hadn’t exercised in days, and my leg muscles felt tight and resistant when I started to jog. I sucked the sea air deep into my lungs and tried to flush out all the accumulated stress and craziness of the last couple of days.

I needed some time to think. Especially about B.J. Something about the status of our friendship had changed last night. I wasn’t sure I liked the change, but it was irrevocable.

He was fresh out of the shower and the surfboard was back in its rack when I returned to the apartment. “Would you like some tea, something to eat?”

I shook my head.

“Feel free to shower if you want.”

“No, I’ve got to get back and clean up my place. I’ll shower at home. I’ve got a job at eleven.”

“I can take you right now if you want.”

I didn’t understand why, but I felt like being as uncooperative and disagreeable as I could.

“I think that would be best.”

We didn’t talk in his truck at all. I felt him looking at me several times. I was afraid to return his glances, afraid he would see something in my eyes to let him know that I was just like all those other girls who lusted after him. I didn’t want to join the ranks of B.J.’s exgirlfriends. What had made me think that I could have something different with him? It was about a fifteen-minute drive to Bahia Cabana, where I had left Lightnin’, but in that silence it seemed much longer.

We pulled up alongside my Jeep. “Oh great.” There was a ticket tucked under the windshield wiper.

“Things could be worse,” B.J. said.

“Yeah, right.” I climbed out of the El Camino and leaned back in through the open passenger window. Bouncing the palm of my hand against the side of the El Camino’s window frame, I said, “Thanks, man,” and turned away. From the corner of my eye, I watched the truck pull out onto A1A.

Me and B.J.? I had to put it out of my mind. There was no way that could ever work out.

On my way home, I stopped off at my favorite breakfast spot, a drive-through gourmet coffee place, and ordered an onion bagel and a big café con leche. I drove to a little park overlooking the river and ate my breakfast in the Jeep. It was a hot morning for March, and the coffee brought a mist of sweat to my upper lip. The usual Saturday morning parade of pleasure boats putt-putted down the river carrying throngs of white, lotion-smeared bodies from the western edges of the county. Many folks who lived out in the suburbs spent their whole lives inside their air-conditioned homes on treeless landfill lots. There were places out there where Red used to take us back when we were kids, places where we could launch

our old Sears aluminum skiff along the side of the road and pole our way through the sawgrass, fishing for bass. Those places don’t exist anymore, the land’s changed so much. Bulldozers and truckloads of fill have made driveways where folks now park their boats so they can drive fifteen miles east on weekends and launch their boats at one of the ramps along the river.

Back at the cottage, Abaco greeted me like I had been gone weeks. She had a doghouse on the grounds of the Larsen place, but usually I let her inside for the night. After a thorough belly rub, I opened the door to the mess, determined not to be discouraged. Nothing had changed. I scooped up some dry dog food from the torn bag on the floor, put it in Abaco’s dish outside, and filled her water bowl.

I decided I’d work first, shower later. Taking several big lawn-size garbage bags and spreading them around the cottage, I told myself to throw away everything I could live without, to clean out the debris that was cluttering up my life.

I got my easel set back up and found my paints, which were intact. I found my telephone answering machine under a pile of books and papers and plugged it back in. I cursed myself for not having thought of it sooner. It was possible I’d lost a job or two because a client had been unable to reach me. I also dug my handheld VHF out of the debris and turned it on to monitor channel sixteen. With that payment to Maddy, I’d pretty well cleaned out my checking account, Neal had cleaned out my reserves, and basically, I was broke. I wondered how Jeannie was making out with the salvage claim. I picked up the telephone receiver and dialed her number.

“I tried to call you last night, but there was no answer right up to midnight,” she said.

I brought her up to date on the break-in, Burns, the guys on the beach, and Maddy’s unforgiving stance.

“Jeannie, only one person on earth knew where I kept that money. I think he tried to make it look like a break-in and maybe got a little carried away, but I’m pretty sure Neal was the one who made this mess. It looks like he’s in trouble, and I’d like to think he’d help me out if things were reversed.”