Landlocked (A water witch novel) (24 page)

“As long as your mom is okay with it. I don’t want her getting even madder at you and embarrassing you in front of everyone.”

“I don’t know that she is ever ‘okay’, but I could text her and see if she's all right with us cutting up this atrocity. Besides, she’d never do anything in public—has to save face…” She picked her phone up off of the dresser.

“You text your mom when she’s home?” I asked cautiously.

“It’s safer this way,” she whispered as she clicked on her phone.

“What do you mean?” Jaron asked.

She sent the text and then looked up. “Easier, it’s just easier.”

He pulled himself away from the wall slowly, like he was approaching a crazed animal. “Clarissa, does she hit you?”

I sucked in a breath. Her mother was horrid, but surely she wasn’t physically abusive. The thought had never even entered my mind.

“Jaron,” I said, picking up his hand before dropping it quickly. His skin was as hot as a burner on the stove.

“Just because something is unpleasant doesn’t mean you ignore it,” he raged. I tugged at my shirt collar. The room was sweltering hot. “Does she hit you, you can tell me.”

“No,” Clarissa said firmly. “She hasn’t ever hit me. Sometimes when she is really drunk, I think she wants to. I just prefer texting so I don’t set her off.”

Jaron drew in a breath and closed his eyes.

“You okay there, buddy?” Clarissa asked.

The room began to cool, and I wondered if the tense exchange had fooled my body into thinking it was hot.

“I’m fine, I just can’t handle… I don’t like it when a woman is being hurt.”

“Why are you so sensitive about it?” Clarissa asked.

He cleared his throat. “Because I’m a true southern gentleman.” He paused and set his eyes on me. “Can you excuse us a moment, Clarissa?” he asked, heading to the sitting room door.

She looked at me, and I tried to let her know it was cool. “Sure.”

We walked into the sitting room and closed the door behind us. Jaron turned to me. “I know I probably should go home while you help her fix this mess, but I can’t leave you alone with that crazy woman in this house.”

I rolled my eyes. “She isn’t anything that I can’t handle.” His face hardened and I wondered if I really believed what I had just said.

Jaron pulled me into his arms, his rough hands held me firmly against him. “My sweet Maribel, I hope you never fully understand what I’m about to say, but believe it… when someone has darkness in them, just assume they are capable of anything, because they are.”

“What makes you say that?” He turned his face away from me, but held me tighter. “Does this have anything to do with where you really go at lunch hour every day?”

“You already figured out that I don’t have a part-time job during lunch hour?” he asked.

“Well, honestly I don’t know why I believed you in the first place. A lot of people have after school jobs, but I don’t know anyone who has a lunchtime job… I guess it is easy for me to believe what you say, but I don‘t know that it should be.” I cringed, not meaning to say that last part aloud.

“I say what I have to say, and sometimes you shouldn’t trust my words. But you should always trust me.” He pulled me in until my face rested against his hard chest and placed a gentle kiss on my hair.

The sitting room was dimly lit by a large stained glass window that cast the room in eerie colors, Clarissa‘s house had always creeped me out. Maybe it wasn’t the décor but the tension through the home that made me unsettled. Whatever it was that had sent shivers up my spine in the past didn’t bother me now. I felt so safe in Jaron’s arms, but how could I when he said things like that? What was wrong with me?

“How can I trust you when I can’t trust half of the things that you say?” I whispered.

His long fingers trailed up my back and grabbed my shoulders tugging me away from him, so he could see my face. “People are more than their words, Maribel. I’ve had to lie and I’ve been lied to. Words have lost their meaning to me… well, most of them. There are three words that mean more to me now than they ever have…” His voice trailed off as he stared transfixed on my lower lip. I was beginning to worry that I had something there when he crushed into me, trapping me in a fevered kiss that warmed me all over. My head was spinning with the scent and the feel of him. His large hands wove themselves into my hair. “Maribel,” he moaned.

I pushed away from him before I was completely lost in his spell. “I have to help Clarissa.” I cleared my throat and tried to pull my fingers through my messy hair. “Now try to behave yourself, I need to concentrate or I won’t get this dress done.” I teased before opening the door.

He smiled a crooked smile and put a hand to his heart. “I will be quiet as a church mouse.”

A mouse was better than a smoldering sex God, at least in mixed company. “I can deal with a mouse. According to Cinderella they make pretty good seamstresses.”

“I could be a seamstress for you,” he said while stepping back into Clarissa’s bedroom.

She brightened.

“So has your mom texted you back?” I asked, hoping we could hurry and dive into the work.

“She said I could do whatever I wanted to the dress. I guess she already proved that she can take anything away from me, now she’s back to not caring.” She smiled, and for the first time I thought she looked actually happy to have her mother in her uncaring shell and I could hardly blame her there.

“Well let’s get going on your dress. Don’t know how I am going to rearrange this…” I picked up an armful of the tulle skirt. “…into a stunning gown in three hours if we use up all of our time with chit-chat.”

The tension in Clarissa’s shoulders eased. “All right, follow me.”

The workroom was like the ones I had seen on project runway, brightly lit and well organized. It would pass for a professional workshop if it wasn’t so obviously unused and a little cutesy. Clarissa wasn’t joking when she said it should be stocked with everything I needed. Thread of all kinds and colors was stored in roll out drawers, as well as buttons, zippers, and sequins. The only thing the room didn’t have was fabric, which was all right. The dress that now hung from a hanger on the wall would provide that.

“All right, let’s see what we have to work with. I need scissors and a seam ripper.”

After a little searching, Clarissa found the drawer that held the tools. I delicately removed layer after layer until all of the tulle was gone.

“Better than we could have hoped for,” I said, smiling at the satin skirt buried under all of the fluff.

“I like the fabric, but do we have enough to change the design completely?” she asked.

“I think we will, for what I have in mind. Your mom was quite a bit bigger than you are. Funny that she would make remarks about your weight. I’ll need to take it in at least three sizes.” I picked up the scissors, ready to start taking it apart. “Do you want me to do a quick sketch of the design for you?”

“As long as you plan on removing the ten pound orbs that the eighties called sleeves, then I’m down for whatever.”

I got straight to work, laying the dress flat on the floor. First I detached the skirt from the bodice with my seam ripper and cut the skirt from a ball gown to more of a fitted A-line silhouette. The fabric running across the chest got snipped into a sweetheart neckline and I cut the back of the dress into a swooping oval that would hit the middle of her back. I organized all of the pieces and was happy with my work.

“All right,” I said, looking over at Jaron and Clarissa. Clarissa was gazing at the deconstructed gown in white-faced horror. “Don’t worry. It’s going to be much more beautiful than it was before I took it apart.” I was sure of that. “Now while I get this back together, you two need to turn that tulle into a lot of rosettes.” I gestured to the pile of tulle.

Jaron’s face fell in confusion. I laughed, realizing that Clarissa was just as dumbfounded as Jaron. What kind of girlfriend did I have? I quickly showed them how to cut the tulle into strips and then roll it into a flower shape that was held together by sewing a small sequin at the center.

“Wow, you really did want to turn me into a seamstress,” Jaron said as he pulled a needle up through the center of a sequin.

“I wouldn’t want to have all of the fun,” I teased before kissing his cheek.

“When imagining us together in a room with a dress on the ground, this isn’t the type of fun that came to mind,” he said in a devilish tone.

Clarissa cleared her throat and shot Jaron a glare that could have set him on fire.

“Well, anyway…” I returned to my work. I had the dress put together in twenty minutes. Jaron groaned when I called Clarissa over for the fitting, leaving him to do all of the rosettes alone.

“I think I’ll take a bathroom break while you get her into the dress,” he said, rubbing his neck awkwardly.

“Go down the hall the way we came and it’s the second door on your left,” Clarissa said.

Jaron stepped out of the room and Clarissa dropped her robe and stepped into the silky dress. Even with pins hanging out of it, it was still breathtaking on her. I wished Sylvia was there. No one could fit a gown like my aunt.

“Oh, Maribel! It is so much better than I could have possible expected,” she squeaked as she looked in the full-length mirror.

“Stop wiggling. I need to get this to fit like a glove and attach all of the flowers around the bottom.”

“You mean the flowers that Jaron is making?” she asked, putting extra emphasis on his name.

“Yes… you want to tell me what you’re getting at. I can tell you’re getting at something,” I said, sticking a pin through the fabric at her side.

“Not that many guys would make rosettes for a girlfriend, not even that… for a friend of a girlfriend.”

“So I’m his girlfriend now, am I?”

She shrugged and then looked at me apologetically. “Not moving,” she said with a grin. “And I would say that between meeting the parents, driving you to school, and being unable to keep your lips off of him… yes, that probably makes you his girlfriend.”

“I should hope so,” Jaron said from across the room. He had entered and started sewing rosettes without either of us noticing. “If this is how Maribel treats just any boy, I’ll be a little upset,” he smirked. “Glad that I was one of the lucky few, but upset none the less.”

I put the last pin in place. “I don’t know why I let you two in the same room together. You like embarrassing me too much.”

“Me embarrassing you, please. He was the one making innuendos about a dress on the ground. Almost threw up in my mouth,” she said, gagging to prove her point.

I laughed. The day had turned into a pretty good one. Clarissa’s normal smile was back in place, and watching Jaron sew was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. His large hands weren’t meant for such delicate work. But he never complained, and I was impressed with how quickly he churned the faux flowers out. After taking in the seams to fit her body, I started attaching the rosettes to the bottom of the skirt, making them more concentrated at the bottom and fanning them out to the knee. The end product was lite and ethereal. Clarissa looked like a goddess in it.

“Oh! I love it. I hope my mom likes it,” she exclaimed.

I tried not to roll my eyes. Her mother would never like anything that had to do with Clarissa. It broke my heart that she always kept this sliver of hope that her mom would give her any kind of approval.

“You look amazing and won’t be making your debutant debut naked, that’s all I care about,” I said rubbing my shoulders. My back was killing me. Being hunched over a sewing machine for three hours would do that.

“I don’t know how you finished this with thirty minutes to spare!” she gushed.

“Thirty minutes? What time is it?” I asked quickly.

Jaron looked at his watch. “Six thirty,” he said.

“Oh no!” I ran across the room and tore open my purse to fetch my phone, flipping it open. There were ten missed calls. Sylvia was going to kill me. I dialed her back and she picked up after half a ring.

“Hello, Maribel?” Sylvia said.

My stomach twisted, her voice sounded so worried.

“Yes, it’s me. I’m so sorry. I had to go to Clarissa’s after school. I’m on my way home right now.” I brace myself for a tongue-lashing.