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.