Moment of Impact (2 page)

The little girl, who was probably no more than five, smiles and shrinks just a little as she raises her hand slightly as if she’s in school and got called on by the teacher without knowing the answer. “That’s mine.”

I drop the plate on the table in front of her and point to the syrups in the caddy by the window. “Blueberry is my favorite,” I say.

The girl giggles as she looks at all the syrups in the caddy. Her mom quickly grabs the caddy and pulls one out for her.

“Oh, there is so much sugar in these. Only a little, Debra,” her mom says. “You don’t want to eat too much and get fat.”

My insides recoil, but I keep the smile pasted on my face.

“For God’s sake, Wendy, we’re on vacation. Can’t she have a little treat?”

I’m still standing there with the plates and I hear the bell ring again, then Brenda call, “Order up!”

The father looks at me, then at the tray, and then points to his wife. “She’s not eating steak and eggs. You can give her the melon and yogurt. Leave the rest in front of me.”

“Okay,” is all I manage to say. I serve all the food and then turn away with the tray hugged against my chest. Watching them was like watching a flashback of my own life in slow motion. And suddenly I feel sad for that little girl, knowing how incomplete she is going to feel as the years go by.

I deposit the tray in a stack by the window and then look at the slip, brushing back some grease with my thumb as if that would somehow make it clean again. Server six. I’m server eleven.

“That’s Kathy’s,” Brenda says, poking her head in the window. “Let her get that one. You take a pitcher of lemonade and some to-go cups out to the workers in the yard. There are about three or four of them out there. It’s not too hot yet, but it will be. I don’t want anyone passing out while they’re working. Oh, and can you set up the patio for lunch? With the hot weather, we may need the extra tables.”

“Sure.”

Without processing what that means, I fetch a family-sized pitcher that we use for people who don’t want to buy beverages by the glass, and fill it half way with ice. Then I walk to the dispenser and fill the pitcher with lemonade. I set the pitcher on the counter and then count out four cardboard cups.

I walk through the restaurant with the pitcher of lemonade and cups in my hand, heading for the side door. Just as I get there, I look out the window and see Penny. My surprise at seeing my roommate with a rake in her hand changes to anticipation. Is he here, too? I look around at the crew. There are only three of them. Among them was a familiar face, the rugged guy with dark hair that I’d seen this morning on my way to work.

I wrap my arm around the lemonade pitcher and clutch it against my chest, holding the cups in the hand that is keeping the pitcher secure. Then I hit the door handle and open the door to the outside where the temperature is considerable hotter than it had been during my walk to work earlier that morning.

Penny looked up from the where she’d been smoothing cedar mulch around a tree with the rake. Tendrils of her dark blond hair had pasted themselves to her forehead and cheek even though she’d clipped her hair back.

“Is that for us?” she asks with a smile.

“Yeah, Brenda thought you could all use something for the heat.”

I look at the three men working along with Penny. One of them looks about five years younger than me and I’m pretty sure this gig is his first job. The other stood up straight and wiped his hands on a rag he kept tucked in the loop of his cargo shorts. The other man, the one I could recognize anywhere, kept on working.

I pour a cup of lemonade and hand it to Penny. She wipes her forehead with the back of her hand before she takes the cup.

“Thanks,” she says.

I pour another cup of lemonade, but the hot guy who stares at me every morning won’t even look at me now.

“Don’t you want some lemonade?” I say, feeling stupid for holding out the damned lemonade. It’s not like I wrote my number on the cup or anything like that.

Finally, he stops what he’s doing and lifts his gaze to me. I hadn’t expected him to have the sweetest brown eyes I’ve ever seen. And I hadn’t expected him to be so shy.

He takes the cup from my hand and turns away.

“Didn’t your mother ever teach you manners?” I say.

He darts a glance at me and then at his boss. “Thank you,” he says, lifting the cup and nodded just enough for me to see it.

He’s already turned his back to me again and gone back to work on pulling some weeds on the other side of the flower bed that Penny had been working on.

I turn to Penny. “I’m going to leave the pitcher out here in case you need a refill. Brenda said there’s more of this if you need some. She doesn’t want anyone passing out in the heat.”

“That probably won’t be necessary,” Penny says. “Drake says we’ll probably be done here before noon.”

Momentary disappointment made my mood fall just a hair. Only because I knew it would probably not be the last time I’d see this man. “Well, the offer is there if you need it.”

I set the pitcher of lemonade on the table and walk back inside, nearly forgetting that Brenda asked me to set up the patio area. I take a quick look around to see what needs to be done. The hot guy lifts his gaze to me and our eyes meet for a brief moment. Then he stands up straight and tall from the bent over position he’d been working in. At first, it seems like he’s just stretching his back. But his penetrating gaze never falters and leaves me with shivers running through my body.

“Gus,” Drake says.

And then the moment is gone as hot guy suddenly stood at attention in front of his boss. Or he may as well have because I was suddenly invisible again.

But what I first thought might be a reprimand by his boss, turned out to be nothing more than a scheduling change.

“We’re getting through this quicker than I planned, thanks to the both of you,” Drake said to the small crew. “If we can get through this job before lunch, we should be able to finish work early this afternoon at the Windjammer and then maybe we can all knock off early.”

“Sounds great,” Penny said.

I turn my back on the four of them and head back into the restaurant to get the bucket of soapy water and a sponge to wash down the tables. I look at the tables I’d been waiting on and see the food has already been served. It’s normal for all of us to pitch in for each other.

Melinda is now filling salt and pepper shakers, getting ready for the lunch crowd. I know I need to go outside and set up the patio. But it suddenly feels strange outside with Penny and her co-workers when I’m the odd one out. A swell of envy consumed me as I grabbed a bucket from under the sink, tucked it under the faucet and watched the hot water pour into it. I squirt a couple of tablespoons of dishwater into the bucket and watch the spray turn it to suds.

When the bucket is full, I grab a fresh white terry cloth rag by the sink and drop it in the bucket. As I head to the side door again, I see Penny laughing at something either Drake or Gus has said and that swell of envy fills me again.

There is only one way to cure a case of envy. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let the afternoon go by without dealing with it.

# # #

Gus

She’d disappeared again. And so had I. It was like a game. She knew me and I knew her and yet, we’ve never met.

This could go on all fucking summer.

Work at the Windjammer is going fast. We’ll get out of here before three, which means I get some beach time in. The grounds hadn’t been brutalized by the winter like many of the properties they worked on along the coast. I don’t care how much work there is. It’s a paycheck, and it’s brownie points I need if I want to get Edmond out of my everyday life.

“Break’s over, Gus.” I glance over at Drake who’s sporting a shit-eatin’ grin that pisses me off. “She had a nice ass. I’ll give you that,” he says quietly so Penny, who is hacking away at a hydrangea bush not far from them, can’t hear. “But if we want to get out of here by three, we need to get this done. I think we’re ready for some mulch. Bring the truck over?”

My cheeks are flaming as hard as if the two of them can actually see the hard-on that I’m getting just from thinking about Lily. I walk over to the truck and climb inside, firing up the engine and then backing up into a space that had been filled earlier when the restaurant was in full swing. I get as close as I can to the areas we’re working on so that we don’t have to haul the mulch through the parking lot and risk spilling it all over the place. Then I climb out and grab a shovel and a garbage can we usually use to fill with mulch and carry to wherever we need it.

I start to shovel mulch into the barrel when Penny comes over and deposits her clippers in the toolbox on the side of the truck.

“You’ve ogled over her enough, Gus. Why don’t you just say hi?”

“No interest, Pen.” I lied.

“Yeah, and I have a dick.” She chuckles and I can’t keep my own laugh from coming up my throat.

I shake my head and grab a shovel. “She’s eye candy.”

“Eye candy?” Penny says, straightening her back and gives me a lethal glare. I’m suddenly glad she’s already stashed away the clippers she’d been using earlier. “She’s a whole hell of a lot more than that.”

“Yeah, she is. She is a rich bitch earning some play money to buy five-dollar coffees at some Boston college café this fall. Mommy and Daddy are probably footing the bill.”

Penny shifts uncomfortably and I know I hit the mark. But Lily is her roommate and there is a code there. You don’t talk trash about a chick’s roommate.

But I can’t help myself. “You know what I’m talking about, Penny. They work in the trenches for a few months out of the year and sample life on the wild side. Girls like that are sent into a panic if they break a nail. I haven’t got the time.”

“Yeah? You’ve got enough time to watch her.”

I clear my throat, tired of the attention. “Can you start loading the rest of the tools in the truck so we can get out of here quicker? I’ll finish up with the mulch.”

Penny stares at me for a moment and then laughs wryly. “Yeah, sure.”

Twenty minutes later, Drake drops me off at my place and then heads out with Penny to drop her off at her beach house. The house was owned by Beverly Pickam, a woman I’d heard Mrs. B gossip about while she was on the phone upstairs. Apparently, according to Mrs. B., Beverly thought she owned the island now that her rich husband had died.

Well, maybe Mrs. P’s houses didn’t have tiles that popped off the wall every time you took a shower or windows that had been painted shut in the kitchen so the whole room heats up like an oven even without the stove on. They probably had nice new furniture that doesn’t smell of vomit, although I had managed to get the smell out of the sofa in this place. Now it has a sickly stench of flowers and bleach.

I jump in the shower and scrub off a days’ worth of hot sweat, dirt and peeling skin on my shoulders from being in the sun too long without protection. It’s not too bad. By the time I’m done scrubbing, I can barely see it.

I step out of the shower and dry off quickly. I can probably get an hour or two of paddleboard time in before it gets too windy on the beach.

Twenty minutes later, I have my paddleboard under one arm and the paddle in the other and I’m running down the beach toward the surf. Everyone has a place where life makes sense. This one is mine. It’s the only reason I pushed to come to Nantucket. All the other choices Edmond gave me were lame. What the hell was I going to do way out in the country during the summer? Sure, working as a landscaper gave me the physical outlet I need and I can do that just about anywhere, but nothing beats a front row seat to the magnificence of the Atlantic Ocean.

No, this is the best. If it means I have to live in Mrs. Beachman’s apartment to get this perk, I’ll put up with her crankiness about my smoking.

My board is afloat in the water and my paddle is by my side. I kneel on the board and paddle out with my hands until I’m deep enough to get passed the surf. Once I’m beyond the break, I put one foot up and then the other until I’m standing. It’s just me and the paddle for the next hour. Can’t get into any trouble out here.

* * *

Lily

“What’s he like?” I ask Penny. Her hair is still wrapped up tight with a towel from her shower, but she’s changed into army green cargo shorts and a blue tank top.

“Why do you ask?”

I make a face. “You don’t think he’s hot?”

Penny looked at me, her eyes narrow. “I think he’s fine.”

“That’s it? Fine? Fine, how? Gorgeous fine? Or just…fine?”

Penny goes to the refrigerator and pulls out a can of soda. She pops the top of the can before she turns around. When she does, I see her amused look.

“The first day you saw him you thought he was a pervert. Now you’re crushing on Gus Jennings?”

My cheeks flame. What is this? High school? “I’m just curious.”

She takes a sip of her soda. “Yeah, he was curious about you, too.”

“Really?”

Penny puts her soda on the counter and turns back to the fridge. “Do you want to make something for supper or do you want to go out?”

“What?”

“Jenna is out with Bobby and Heather is working so it’s just you and me.”

Jenna had already hooked herself up with a military man. I know the two are a hot item even if Jenna hasn’t said anything to me about it. Heather is probably still down at the bar trying to get with her ex, a lost cause she refuses to give up on.