The Newcomer (Thunder Point) (25 page)

“Creeps you out, huh?”

“We’ll head you off if you seem to be moving in an unsafe direction—like if we think you’re into drugs or drinking or speed racing down country roads or throwing keggers. But trying to spy to embarrass and expose you?” She shook her head. “You can come to me with anything, honey. Anything. And I’ll do whatever I can to help you. Your health and safety come first. I could
not
live without you.”

Eve hugged her. “Thank you for understanding.”

“I understand completely,” she said, hugging back. Then, holding Eve away and looking into her eyes, “And stay far away from him until you’re safe. Got that?”

“Got it,” she said with a laugh.

Seventeen

E
ric Gentry hadn’t seen Thunder Point in over sixteen years. Yet here was the town, looking almost exactly as it had all those years ago. Gina was working in the same diner that her mother had worked in. It amazed him that things could remain so unchanged. He briefly pondered whether he pitied them for their lack of imagination or envied them the continuity of their surroundings and friends.

He went into the diner and found Gina standing behind the counter with a laptop open in front of her. She smiled at him. “Hello, Eric.”

“Hi. This place hasn’t changed at all.”

“I know,” she said. “Upgrades come slowly in Thunder Point. Stand by—let me ask Stu to cover for me for a bit and I’ll take you to meet Ashley. She stopped by here about a half hour ago and said she was taking a walk down to the beach.”

“Wait a sec,” he said. “She knows I’m coming, right?”

Gina nodded. “You said sometime this weekend, whenever you could get away for a few hours.”

“Is she nervous?” he asked, hands in his pockets.

“She’s very curious. Are you? Nervous?”

“Nah, not me. I’m just terrified.”

She tilted her head and lifted a brow. “As I recall, you’re very good with teenage girls.”

He winced. “I guess I had that coming.”

“It’ll be fine. Let me go talk to—”

“Nah, you stay here. Let me just go by myself. If she wants to, we could walk back here and have a Coke or something.”

“Okay. You know the way, right?”

He tapped his temple. “Burned into my memory.”

“Good luck, Eric.”

He turned to go, then turned back. “Gina, I appreciate you giving me a chance here. That you trust me.”

She smiled at him. “I don’t trust you, Eric. I checked you out. My boyfriend is a cop and I ran a background search on you. You were very nice at our meeting and you haven’t had a black mark against your name since you were a kid. But if you hurt my daughter in even the slightest way, you will regret it. I promise.”

“I won’t hurt her, Gina. And I promise.”

He walked down the street, turned onto the beach road and spotted her immediately even though she was on the far side of the beach. Her red hair was pulled through the back of a baseball cap and she sat on the sand, knees pulled up with her arms circling them. There was one kid out on the bay on a paddleboard. Closer to the town side of the beach, a couple of young mothers sat on towels while their little ones played in the sand at the water’s edge.

There weren’t many places like this, he recalled—a long stretch of beach, a natural and untouched promontory, a calm bay without the presence of a lot of large businesses and hotels. Most of the coastline, at least parts the public could access, was busy with establishments that catered to beach combers and tourists. He remembered the bait shop; it looked as though it had been improved since he’d last seen it.

Ashley didn’t notice him approach until he stood right beside her and she looked up at him.

“Hi, Ashley. I’m Eric Gentry.”

Her mouth dropped open as she looked at him. She slowly got to her feet, brushing the sand off her butt. “Wow,” she said in a breath. “I look just like you.”

He chuckled. “You’re much prettier, but you inherited the red hair and green eyes.”

“My mom didn’t mention that. I think she told me everything else, though.”

“She said you’ve been having a terrible time lately,” he said. “Go ahead, sit down.”

“That’s okay. You don’t want to mess up your pants.”

He looked down at himself. He wasn’t dressed up by any means, just a pair of Dockers, a shirt, topsiders on his feet without socks. “I’m good,” he said, lowering himself to the sand. “I’m sorry life has thrown you some curves, Ashley. Is there any way I can help? Anything you want to know about me or my family?”

She sat down, lifted her bottled water and took a slug. “Well, how about, where have you been?”

He knew that wasn’t a literal question. “Well, I figured if I was my kid, I wouldn’t want to know about me. I’m not exactly anyone’s hero.”

“Mom said you used to be a real hoodlum, but straightened yourself out.”

“I served time, Ashley. She told you that, right?”

She nodded. “You must’a been a badass. What screwed you up?”

“Me. I screwed me up. I wasn’t kicked around as a kid, my mother washed my clothes, had dinner on the table every night and my dad tried to get me interested in sports, but I fell in with a fun crowd and thought I was smarter than everyone else because I had a job that paid nine dollars an hour. I dropped out of school to work more and spent my money on cars, liquor and dope. When I heard I’d gotten my girlfriend pregnant, I ran and found another good-paying job as a grease monkey and a bunch of cool friends who not only drank and doped, but found an interesting way to improve themselves—they robbed convenience stores and liquor stores. That’s pretty much the quick summary.”

“I take it you got caught,” she said.

“I drove the car,” he said. “First time out, I got caught.” He closed his eyes briefly. “Listen, there’s no reason you have to tell anyone that your biological father is an idiot and an ex-con. Your secret is safe with me. I don’t want you to be embarrassed.”

“I’m not embarrassed, Eric. I’m not the ex-con.” Then she looked out at the bay, at the guy on the paddleboard. Then back at him. “I bet you have a lot of regrets.”

He pulled his knees up and looked out at the bay. “Kind of, kind of not. The thing about the hard times, the stupid times, they make you who you are. And regrets— I look back and ask myself if I didn’t do a certain thing that I’m really ashamed of, how would that change the present? What would it erase from my current life? What if I hadn’t been such a badass idiot back then? Would I have learned the cost of that recklessness? Would you be here? There are things I’m totally ashamed of that I wouldn’t change. I ran out on your mom, but if I had stepped up and married her, oh, God, would she have gotten a bad deal. I was such an irresponsible asshole.”

“And now?” she asked.

“I’m all right,” he said with a shrug. “I abide by the laws. I have a little business and a girlfriend. My folks are starting to forgive me. I treat people right. I don’t drink or do drugs. I’m nothing special, but at least I’m not unsafe. I’ve learned a lot.”

She sighed. “Me, too.”

“I hope you don’t mind, but your mom told me some of what you’ve been through. Specifically, the boyfriend, the hospitalization...”

“She told me she did. She was looking for medical history, like does hearing voices run in your family....”

He couldn’t help it, he chuckled. “No official mental illness that I’m aware of, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have crazy people in my DNA. Probably starting with me. So, Ashley, how are you getting along now? How are you feeling?”

“Oh, I feel kind of emptied out. I had a boyfriend dump me, but I’m not pregnant or in jail. I’ve been in therapy and group therapy and I’m very tired of seeing pain everywhere. When I was in the hospital, one of the other patients was my age and had tried to commit suicide, over a boy. It was shocking to think how dangerous that could be, how far something like that could go. I wish I’d never met her so I wouldn’t have to think about how hopeless she must have felt to do that to herself. And I’m so grateful to have met her so I could see how far something like a broken heart could go, how much destruction there could be if we’re not careful.”

“I’m so sorry, Ashley. So glad there was a positive message in it for you.”

She lifted one shoulder and looked down. “The worst part is that I felt that way for a little while myself, but I just didn’t follow through. I just couldn’t do that to my mom and Grandma. I wonder if that girl ever thought about that, about how people would feel.”

“You felt that way because of the boyfriend?” he asked.

She nodded.

“What did your mom say about that? About the girl you met?”

“She said we don’t all have the same number of tools in our tool belts. That she did the best she could with what she had. And I do the best I can with my set of tools.”

“Your mom is pretty smart,” he said. “I hope you have a tool for telling the ex-boyfriend to go pound sand.”

She gave a soft laugh. “Oh, I still want things back the way they were, but I’m not dumb enough to take that kind of chance. I might never get over him, but I’m done with him.”

“Things almost never go back to the way they were, Ashley. That’s one of the hardest lessons—that you can’t undo things and you can’t unsay things. When you pass through something like that, you have to build something new.”

“So people don’t get back together?”

“Sure they do, but if they operate under the old rules they’ll revisit the old problems. You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over and expect different results.”

“Yeah, my mom said that, too.” She turned to look at him. “You must have had to make a lot of changes.”

He laughed without humor. “Yeah. I hate when that happens.” The young man on the board was coming in. Eric watched as he dragged the board out of the water. “We only lived here a couple of years when I was a kid. I never learned to do that.”

“Popular sport around here,” Ashley said. “The bay is a great place for it—it’s almost always calm. Sometimes when the tide is out you can even get on the ocean. Want me to teach you sometime? Cooper, the guy who runs the bait shop now, he doesn’t have bait anymore but he has some paddleboards and kayaks instead. He rents ’em. And my mom and I—we have boards.”

Eric smiled. “How about now?”

“You’re not exactly dressed for it,” she said. “You could get wet, unless you’re like a natural. And I bet you’re not.”

He laughed loudly at that. “I can almost guarantee I’m not. But if I get wet, I’ll dry. Let’s go get a couple of boards.”

“You’re sure?”

“Why not? I’ve been trying to think of something we could do. I mean, you probably don’t like popping dents out of cars or sanding them down and painting them. And you know—I always used to envy the kids who had their boards or skiffs out on the bay.”

She grinned at him and his heart melted. “You’re kind of goofy.”

“One of the things I changed. I exchanged idiot for goofy.” He stood up. “Come on, we’ll give it ten minutes. And if you’re not completely sick of me, maybe I’ll come back at a prearranged time and wear a pair of shorts.”

She stood. “All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

* * *

Gina’s shift should have been over before three, but she hung around the diner waiting for Ashley and Eric to come in for a Coke. An hour had passed. She hoped they’d gotten caught up in talking. She beat down the fear that something had gone terribly wrong. She knew Ashley wanted to meet him, believed that Eric was a safe man, but still...

Finally, unable to bear the suspense, she said goodbye to Stu and the teenage waitress on duty and walked down to the beach. What she would give for Ray Anne’s binoculars! They didn’t seem to be on the beach and a glance at Cooper’s deck showed that place didn’t seem occupied. Where could they have gone?

Then she heard a distant laugh that was clearly Ashley’s. She looked out on the bay and there they were. Eric had removed his shirt and shoes, his pants were rolled up to his knees and he was trying to paddle the board, very clumsily, very slowly. And—he was soaking wet. His burnished red hair had curled up just like Ashley’s did, water was dripping off him. His balance wobbled and, with a giant splash, in he fell into the sound of Ashley’s wild laughter.

Gina wanted to sit on the beach and watch them, but she turned and left. This was something her daughter had never had in her life—a man in the family. No father, no grandfather, no steady guy. Mac had always been there for the girls, just as Gina had been, but this was different. And what were the chances that that irresponsible jerk could turn into someone decent? She didn’t have any illusions that this could turn into a powerful and intense father-daughter relationship, but even if Ashley could have the knowledge that she didn’t come from a total loser, Gina would be so grateful.

She looked upward and said, “Oh, thank you, God. Thank you. And please let it be real.”

* * *

It had been about two months, but Ashley had finally gotten to the point she could resist reading about or listening to stories of her ex-boyfriend’s grand achievements in baseball. About the same time Thunder Point High School was celebrating graduation, Oregon State was making it to the playoff championships. She was one of the few not planning to follow the playoffs or trying to attend home games.

Ashley was, however, concentrating on work. She wanted to earn money—her future depended on it. There were very few Thunder Point kids who didn’t have to work to pay for their own activities or cars or car insurance, not to mention saving for college. In fact, most of Ashley’s friends used their part-time job or babysitting money to buy their clothes or cheerleading uniforms or prom formals.

Ashley worked afternoons at the diner, relieving her mother, and some mornings she worked with her grandmother at the deli. All her friends were working—Landon was helping at Cooper’s almost every day and Eve had gotten herself a part-time job at Pizza Hut. They wouldn’t be spending the long days of summer on the beach this year, but rather catching moments here and there to hang out. And even finding time to spend with her mom and Gram wasn’t easy. Sometimes they met at the diner if Ashley went in a little early for her shift and Carrie took a break from the deli before heading home.