Somewhere on St. Thomas: A Somewhere Series Romance (15 page)

I’d thought things couldn’t get any worse.

I wanted to vomit. I stood up and gulped to keep the french fries and black coffee down. “She told you the truth, Dad. I’m so sorry. I know I’m a disappointment to you.”

“But, honey! Rafe McCallum? We loved that young man, welcomed him into our home, our lives! I can’t believe he’d take advantage of our daughter like that!”

Righteous anger was replacing the quaver in Dad’s voice. My parents had introduced us, and he’d worked for them as a groundskeeper for months after I left for college.

“No, Dad. He was very honorable. Asked me to marry him.” I looked at the ring in my hand. “But I just broke up with him. It was a mistake. All a mistake. I’m so sorry. I’m fixing it now.”

I endured a lengthy lecture, and he finally handed the phone to my mom, who said, “Rafe asked you to marry him?” in a hopeful tone.

“He did. But I’m not going to. I’m sworn off men. I’m focusing on my studies one hundred percent.”

She snorted. “I couldn’t concentrate either at your age. Way too many hormones. Well, I saw the way you and Rafe looked at each other, and I can’t say I’m surprised. He has my vote.”

She hung up with that pronouncement, to my extreme relief.

“This is 1989! People don’t have to get married to have sex anymore!” I exclaimed aloud to the empty room. But in my parents’ world, they did.

And now I saw Rafe’s behavior in a different light: the light of respect for my parents and their lifestyle, even if he didn’t share it, and the relationship he had with them separate from me. He might not agree with that lifestyle, but he hadn’t taken advantage of what I’d offered, even pushed on him. Out of respect, out of caring for them and for me.

“I love him,” I said out loud, freed by his confession on the phone to admit what had already hit me on the head when I was alone in the room at Triad’s. “This is terrible.”

I took one long, last look at the ring and put it away in its box. I hid it in the hollow metal leg of my bedstead, where I hoped it would be safe from thieves.

I got up to get on with my man-free life.

Chapter 11

It was kind of a relief to immerse myself in the studies I’d been distractedly muddling through thus far. Shellie and I avoided each other, and while I knew I wanted to try to talk things through at some point, her harsh words had cut deep and I wasn’t in a hurry to hear them again.

In class I resisted the temptation to write to Rafe and took notes instead. I did my shift in the caf, but as myself. “Juliette” and her berets had been retired permanently.

Still, the fun I’d had in the role gave me the idea to try out for a play the Northeastern Players would be performing the last week of the semester, in May. With no boyfriend and no one to hang out with, even after all my studying I had more free time than I’d expected, so I showed up at the tryouts with no idea what to expect.

They were reading for a musical rendering of
Oliver!
, a remake of
Oliver Twist
, and I stood with a group and muddled through the manuscript reading with the rest of a crowd of wannabes.

The crowd thinned out and I was asked to read again, and after that they asked me to sing.

I sang “Amazing Grace” a cappella, because that’s what I knew how to do, and my cheeks were wet with tears on the last note.

Tears for the sweet, sheltered life I’d had on Saint Thomas and had left behind so eagerly. Tears for a life where right and wrong were easy and well defined and I had a place I belonged and a role to play.

All of it was gone now. I felt totally adrift in a gray new world. It scared me, and I didn’t know how to get back to any certain ground. I was doing my very best at this moment, and it had to be enough.

And I cried because today was my birthday, and there was no one to celebrate it with.

There was a short silence after I finished the song. The light on the stage shone in my eyes, and I couldn’t see into the gloom on the other side where the judges sat.

“We’ll call you,” finally came from the darkness, and I all but ran off the stage.

I was done with my studying that night and doing sit-ups for something to do when I heard Shellie return to the suite.

I hopped up and opened my door. “Shellie? Can we talk?”

She turned in the doorway, and I saw her face was streaked with tears. “Oh no! What happened?” I cried, instantly thinking of daredevil Sam hurting himself.

“Oh, nothing. Just got dumped. Again,” she said. “Come in. I need a drinking buddy.”

“Are you sure you should do that? It didn’t seem to go that well the last time,” I said.

“Yeah, about that. I know I said some pretty harsh things. Can’t really remember what they were, but I seem to remember kicking your door.” I realized Shellie had already been drinking as she caromed off the corner of her dresser on the way to the hutch where she kept an impromptu bar. She opened it and took out a bottle of tequila. “Care for a slug?”

“Never had tequila.”

“Well, it’s better with salt and lime, but it works just as well without,” Shellie said, and handed me the squarish bottle.

“Ugh. Is that a worm?” I exclaimed, looking at the greenish thing in the clear liquid.

“I dare you to drink down to it,” Shellie said.

“No way. But I’ll try a slug. Without the actual slug.”

I swallowed a big mouthful.

It tasted vile and burned my throat so that it closed down entirely. I coughed and Shellie laughed. “Let me show you how it’s done,” she said, and knocked back a respectable swallow.

“Ugh,” I gasped. “Maybe more is the answer.”

That’s how we ended up dancing with her stereo on full blast to Madonna’s “Like a Virgin,” and after we were really drunk and my head was spinning, I told her what I’d struggled with all day.

“I’m nineteen today. It’s my birthday.”

“Oh shit,” my best friend said, and belched. “I’m sorry I didn’t remember.
Feliz cumpleaños
!” She handed me the bottle.

“I’ll drink to that,” I said, and did. “I’ve missed you so much. I’m so sorry you found out I’m really a slut. But if you can believe it, I’m still a virgin.”

“What? I saw you after you got back from San Francisco. Talk about someone who looked like they’d just screwed their brains out for a week!”

“Well, I didn’t say we didn’t have sex,” I said. “It was just a little more creative than I knew was possible.” I giggled a little, remembering.

“Well, I’ve got news, too. Sam’s moved on pretty easily, it appears. He e-mails me his stats each week, the numbers of girls he’s been with. Asked me to pass them on to you. So I’m not worried about his broken heart any longer.”

I felt a stab of very real pain. I put my fist against to my stomach. “Oh God. I think I’m going to be sick.”

“So you do care about him.”

“You have no idea how awful that whole situation was. I’m lonely now, without anybody, but it was horrible having to choose and not being able to. I couldn’t…” I suddenly felt the ill-advised tequila making a return and barely got to the shared bathroom between our bedrooms in time.

I’d never drunk so much that I puked before. It was not an experience I ever wanted to repeat, but it seemed to bring Shellie and me together. She did better than I did, holding my hair off my forehead when I couldn’t seem to stop upchucking, and trying to get me to drink water.

“Some birthday,” she said. “I’ll have to find a way to make it up to you.”

The next morning was Saturday, so we got to sleep in. Shellie rendered first aid, apparently feeling bad about dragging me down Tequila Road with her. She brought me coffee and aspirin and told me to get myself together by noon so she could take me to a birthday lunch.

The big, clunky phone rang around ten, when I’d recovered enough to be coherent, and I got birthday wishes from my family. “You never answered the phone yesterday,” Mom said accusingly. Their package hadn’t yet arrived, but I felt heartened by not having been entirely forgotten about.

The phone rang again and it was the director from the play. “We’d like you to come in and read and sing again, for the role of Nancy,” he said, sounding like it was something cool and important.

I racked my brain. I had no idea who that was in the play; I hadn’t read the whole script, just the little parts I’d been pointed to.

“Okay,” I said hesitantly. “Is it a big role?”

He snorted a laugh. “Only the biggest female part. Have you done any drama before? Sung publicly?”

“No. I grew up on Saint Thomas in a very small village. I sang in church,” I said. I realized that, for the first time in my life, I felt kind of proud saying those words.

“Well, you may not be able to handle this role, then,” he said briskly. “But I’d like to see you try. You have a great voice and natural presence.”

“Thanks.” My heart rate picked up at this. Finally, something good might be happening, along with Shellie forgiving me. “I’ll see you Monday for the reading.”

I hung up and jumped out of bed. That was a mistake, as my brain seemed to have stayed behind on my pillow. I moaned, clutching my head. “I hate tequila!” I exclaimed.

Shellie stuck her head in. “There’s some sort of package at the RA’s office. Want me to get it for you?”

“Please. I’ll just be here waiting for the room to stop spinning,” I said.

Shellie was back shortly with a cardboard box. It was covered with foreign-looking stamps and looked battered and stained.

“This looks well-traveled,” Shellie said, handing it to me.

“It’s a long way to Saint Thomas,” I said, sitting up gingerly to peel off the tape.

The object in the box was padded in odd-smelling cotton batting, which I lifted off. Inside was a silver jewelry box on little curved legs.

“Wow,” I said, lifting it out. I frowned because this just didn’t have a look of something my parents would pick out. They were much more practical. I usually got new underwear and socks, along with toiletries or some sort of homemade craft.

I opened the shiny lid.

Graceful tinkling notes filled the air as music drifted up from inside the box. The inside was lined with deep red velvet and small origami folded shapes.

Rafe had sent this. He’d said he’d keep writing.

Shellie had grabbed the chair from my student desk and dragged it over. “Classy gift. Who’s it from?”

“Rafe,” I whispered.

“Oh,” she whispered back. “I kinda see why you dig him.”

“If you ever saw him in person, you’d totally understand,” I said, and unfolded the topmost note.

Happy birthday, Ruby. I love you and miss you,
he’d written, and a lot of other words that turned fuzzy to my tear-filled eyes.

“I thought you broke up with everybody.” Shellie frowned. “Because I’m starting to hope Rafe is single and just might be the guy to help me get over Bryan.” Before the puking had started, I’d heard all about Bryan.

“Rafe said he accepted that I needed my space but that he wasn’t giving up on us. He asked me to marry him,” I said. “He gave me a ring.”

“Oh man,” Shellie said. “No wonder you kicked Sam out of your bed.”

“I never meant to hurt anybody, but somehow I ended up hurting everybody,” I said, closing the music box on the letters, which I wanted to read later.

Alone.

“Well, let’s get out of here and get that birthday lunch,” Shellie said.

* * *

Life got a lot better once I had Shellie back in my life. I got the part in
Oliver!
and a crash course in drama through a heavy rehearsal schedule, so when I wasn’t working in the caf or on my studies in class, I was at the theater working hard there, too, and making new friends.

I never wrote Rafe back, not having an address even if I’d wanted to, but I treasured the letters he’d sent in the jewelry box, reading and rereading them. He continued to write from ports all along the coast of California, then Mexico, then South America.

Reading one from Panama—a vivid description of the locks of the Panama Canal—I realized that the
Creamy Maid
seemed to be working its way from San Francisco to Boston. I got frantic.

“Shellie!” I exclaimed, bursting into her room and waving Rafe’s latest letter with the postmark from Panama on it. “I think Rafe’s coming here!”

“Panama is a long way from Boston,” she snorted after I explained. She’d begun dating a new guy, Phillip, a thin, arty type with Fu Manchu whiskers. He was smoking a doobie in her room, and I thought he might make it to the weekend before she kicked him to the curb.

“The Panama Canal’s part of that famous trade route between Boston and San Francisco,” Phillip said with more enthusiasm than I’d ever seen from him. “It’s the shortcut alternative to sailing around Cape Horn. Does he say anything about the ports they’re going through?”

“No,” I said, feeling my cheeks heat up at talking about Rafe, whom Phillip seemed to think was really cool. “He actually doesn’t talk about the overall voyage much. I don’t know where their destination is. He talks a lot about what he sees, the sea life and birds and such.”