Spring Tide (14 page)

On the drive home I said very little. I was sorting through my feelings about my housing situation and Jermaine’s summons. After I’d made bouillabaisse, Jericho had asked me why I didn’t work at The Landing or Tonya’s, since both were more in line with my previous work at La Maison. The answer was simple: there weren’t any openings. I’d been checking all summer, and as far as I knew, there still weren’t any openings.

He walked me into my building. Coming out of the elevator, I pulled my sweater around my shoulders, the North Pole having annexed the hallway again. He dropped my hand, took my keys from my pinky, and quickly walked ahead.

“Dude?” I tried to catch up.

“Bad feeling.”

As he turned the knob, Sylvia’s door opened and the demon that visited her came out. His gray hair and white shirt were tainted yellow under the lights, his shaded eyes on Jericho. Jericho grabbed my waist, shoved me behind his body, and raised his right palm toward Joel. I was pushed into my condo with his left hand and the door closed at my heels. I looked through the peephole and saw nothing but the back of Jericho’s jacket distorted by curved glass. Before I could react, the door opened, flinging me against the wall. I hit the floor.

He set me on my feet, turned away, and rested against the door, his forehead on his arm. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

“I’m okay. What was that about? Do you know Joel? Why’d you put your hand up to him like that?”

“Joel?” He faced me, his head tilted left and forward. “You know him? Talk to him?”

What’s this about?
“I asked you first.”

“No, you tell me.”

“I know of him.”

“How long has he been around? How many times have you seen him?”

“A few.”

“How long?”

“I don’t know, a couple months.”

His eyes widened. “Months? Who lives next door?”

“Sylvia. I help her out sometimes. She’s an alcoholic. Wait, how do you know him?”

“You, you and Sarah, need to stay away from him, stay away from her. You don’t hear his voice and you don’t let him touch you. Do not let him touch you.” He brought me to the couch. “I know Joel by another name from another place. He’s a con man, can talk to you into doing anything he wants.”

“I’m sure.”

His eyes drilled mine. “He. Will. Butcher. Your. Soul.”

My skin thinned. “You’re scaring me.”

“Good. I want you to be scared.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I made it clear I don’t want to see him around, the same as I’m begging you to stay the hell away from him.”

“What about Sylvia? She needs someone to help her.” I sat up straight. “Is he doing something to her?”

He stared at the wall and agitation built with every tick of the clock.

“Jericho?”

Another thirty seconds passed.

“I’ll talk to the guy that works the security desk downstairs, you know, the big dude,” he finally said.

“Arnold.”

“I’ll ask him to look in on her, let him know about Joel, his history.”

“You’re holding back. What’s he doing to Sylvia?”

He got up and went to the balcony doors. “Sylvia’s not my concern—you are.”

“But Arnold’s not gonna do her dishes or feed her cat.”

He turned on his heel. “Can’t you see how compulsive you are? Are you doing her dishes for your comfort or hers? Damn, Kris, I can’t walk away from a glass of iced tea without finding it in the sink ten seconds later. It makes me nuts that you do that!”

“You fold my jeans and put them at the foot of the bed when I spend the night! Who’s obsessive?” But he was right. Sylvia’s welfare was more important than her condo being clean. “I’ve been helping her out because I don’t know what else to do for her and don’t know what to do with myself right now. I’m changing my clothes.” I turned and went up the hall.

“Hey, Kris?”

“Uh huh.”

“Can I stay? Julia and Donovan are celebrating their anniversary tonight. They need space to get wild.”

“Why’d you have to say that? Aw man, I’ve got a picture in my head now. Oh! And the beard … ” I walked to my room, internally convulsing.

I looked over my left shoulder and then my right at the mirror behind me, my hands grasping for the impossible. I tried to pull it over my head. There was no way I could get out of the dress by myself, my arms unable to bend that far up and back to undo the pearly buttons.

I stuck my head out of the bathroom door. “Little help?”

He appeared behind me and unfastened them, his eyes chained to mine in the mirror until the last one was undone. His chin moved my hair to the side and his lips trailed down the back of my neck. He slid the dress from my shoulders and it fell to the floor as his mouth came over my shoulder blade. My body warmed and my eyes became heavy, months of anticipation welling up inside.
Bring me to the surface.
His palms drifted down my arms to my wrists, dropped and firmly came up the backs of my legs to my waist. He turned me around and sat me on the counter.

“I need you, Kris,” he whispered.

“I’m yours.”

Never did I dream that the song lyrics that ran through my head all day would manifest in my subconscious and exit my mouth.
I’m all yours, baby!
But he looked at me like I’d said the most meaningful thing in the world.

His tongue slid over mine, skimming my teeth, and I waited for him to pull away. He didn’t. His hands slipped through my hair and came around my neck so he could kiss me more deeply. I unbuttoned his shirt and wrapped my legs around him, bringing his body flush to mine as his hand came up my back and unhooked my bra. Thirty seconds of desire ignited inside me, fueled by him—how he felt, sounded, and smelled. But like it had been before, I sank beneath the waves, suffused in golden skin and a strong body.

He abruptly stepped back, his forearm covering his mouth and his eyes looking to the floor. “We can’t. I can’t. I’m sorry. It’s not the right time.” He left the room.

Once I’d risen from the depths, and after a good loud groan and a “what the hell?” I put on shorts and a tank, and then sat with him on the couch where he was eating a big hunk of Irish soda bread that I’d baked earlier in the day.

I pulled his ear. “That’s for Julia. She’s not much of a baker.”

“My bad.”

“Is it good?”

“So good.”

“Better than me?”

His eyes met mine. “Kris, it’s not that I don’t want you. I do. Very much.”

“So when’s the right time?”

“We’ll both know.”

I held his stare for a moment. “That loaf was supposed to sit until tomorrow morning.”

“I don’t think she’ll mind.”

She wouldn’t. “She’s one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

“I owe her and Donovan a lot. After Mom and Dad passed I was in a really bad place. They changed my life.”

I wanted to ask him what had happened to his parents, but didn’t. He’d tell me when he was ready. We stayed up for another hour talking about nothing in particular and playing footsie.

At midnight, I flounced onto my bed. “Are you staying because of Joel?”

“I’m staying because I want to be with you and because I just remembered you have birthday cake.” He flipped off the light, rolled me onto my side, and got behind me. He dragged his fingers through my hair and down my back, giving me the loveliest little shivers.

“Don’t stop. That feels really good,” I said. “I’ll be catatonic in a few minutes.”

His fingers continued their repetition.

What?
I heard a small utterance but it was like my ears couldn’t pick up the frequency of his voice. “Dude?”

“I said, sleep well.”

I was out cold.

I woke at seven and he wasn’t in bed. But there was a note on the bathroom mirror that simply said “dawn patrol.” I assumed it meant he was helping out on Donovan’s shrimp boats, had an early start.

I cleaned cake crumbs off the counter, whisked the couch, threw together a stew, and then glanced at my Explorer, my electric guitar that was parked in the corner of the living room.
Oh yeah, that’s what I need. It’s vibe time.
With earbuds in position and playlists to spare, I got down to the business of getting it on. Playing, electric or acoustic, was the only time I ever let it all go. The sound removed me from the day to day, from my demons: work, school, Dad, boys, all of it. I didn’t hear anything but the notes. I didn’t see anything but the images in my mind. I didn’t feel anything but the vibration of the strings beneath my fingers. Once I got started and the music flowed, the world ceased to exist and even the floor seemed to dissolve under my feet.

But that day I couldn’t fully play out any song because the melody I’d heard the morning I’d woken on the beach with Jericho kept getting in the way. The three strains were developing complexity in the most wonderful way and I couldn’t get them out of my head. I strummed the melody over and over until three drops of water hit my forehead.

“You play electric too? You’re turning me on.” Jericho sat next to me on the floor—hair wet, damp shirt, too fine.

“You didn’t go to work. You went surfing.”

“Oops. You know a lot more than a few chords. You’re good.”

“You’re back. How’d you get in?”

“Sarah buzzed me up.” He motioned to the armchair behind us. “I was sitting there for the last fifteen minutes. How long you been playin’?”

“She’s an idiot détente!” Sarah’s voice came from her room.

“Savant!” I yelled back.

“That’s what I said! You might as well tell him about it so he doesn’t think you’re a psycho!”

“Tell me what?” he said.

I pulled the cord from the input jack. “I have an odd disability. I can’t hear my own voice.”

“You’re not deaf. You pay more attention to sound than anyone I’ve ever known. A bird chirps and you look almost every time.”

“My hearing is fine. It’s enhanced. I know I’m speaking, but the tone is indistinct, so please don’t go all Nick and start in on the whole Helen Keller thing. This is so hard to explain. Thanks, Sarah!”

He rubbed the side of his nose. “Like a computer voice or a robot voice?”

“It’s monotone-ish, kinda, but ambiguous.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Okay, when I was little, my brain started forming pictures to compensate. They’re similar to compression waves. My brain interprets vibration kind of like the magnet in the pick-up of this guitar or the sound hole in an acoustic. Everything I hear is transposed into waves. Anyway, Mom put me with a speech therapist for, geez, at least four years and she helped me learn to speak clearly. It took me a really long time to gauge volume!” I chuckled.

“Are you serious?”

“Dead serious. Over time, a long time, I’ve been able to nail down how loud I’m talking, how I’m intonating words, pitch … have I lost you?”

“I’m not sure I understand it, but that’s trippy. You see the pictures in your mind all the time?”

“Not anymore. When I’m speaking, it’s automatic. When I’m trying to learn a song, I use them to help me find melody, break down the passages, section out the instruments, all that. I play by ear … and brainwave.”

“So what’s your favorite song?”

“‘Daughter of Time.’” It’s a James Thompson. It’s my new anthem for life.” I nodded once.

He smirked. “You have an anthem for your life?”

“Can’t hurt.”

“Why’s it so inspiring?”

“The lyrics. The idea is that truth is the daughter of time, that in time the truth’ll be revealed, that nothing can hold it back. It was Queen Mary Tudor’s motto or some crap.”

“I like it.”

“I like it a lot.” It was my mantra—that in time I’d find my place in the world, find what I needed to move ahead with my life. And the chorus had some tricky sections that were nearly impossible to play, making it all the better.

The oven timer dinged and I got up.

He followed me into the kitchen and leaned against the fridge. “Is the speech thing why you had trouble making friends as a kid?”

I nodded. “I was so uncomfortable, so self-conscious about my voice that I spoke very little. My preschool teacher thought I was autistic. Mom was freakin’ out. And kids are mean. In kindergarten, I hung out with a Vietnamese boy who was learning English and didn’t talk much either. It wasn’t until Sarah and I became friends in second grade that I started talking more, probably ’cause she talked enough for both of us. I didn’t fit into society for a while. At that age, it was hard.”

“I kinda know what that’s like. My mom was a missionary, took me with her on her trips. We traveled around Indonesia, The Philippines, Central and South America from the time I was four until I was fifteen, never staying anywhere longer than six months and only getting back home now and again.”

“Really? What about school?”

“I was homeschooled off and on and in village schools off and on and in the system in California off and on—total inconsistency. I was either way ahead in a subject or way behind. But what really sucked was that I was forever the new kid in the hamlet—didn’t understand the language, the games, the food. Even now, there’re still times when I feel like I don’t fit into this world at all.” He looked from the pot on the stove to my face. “You make me feel like I fit in.”

He sounded sincere and I was struck by the sentiment. I was stepping forward to kiss him when Sarah came out of her room with her crystal-studded eyebrow tweezers.

She sniffed the air. “Is that Lupe’s birria?”

“What’s birria?” Jericho said.

“It’s a Mexican stew. Sarah’s housekeeper taught me how to make it a few years ago. It’s fast, cheap, and spicy, kinda the way I wish you’d be sometimes.” I winked at him.

Boy Wonder breezed in without knocking, since he didn’t have the capacity to form a fist and bang it on a vertical surface. I shot him a look and he grabbed himself. The skin on his thigh was ripped up. He’d fallen off his board, didn’t know how he’d gotten the scrapes, but couldn’t have been more proud of the battle wound. I scrounged through my memory and pulled out every mental picture of Jericho. He didn’t have any scars on his body that I could remember. He was an experienced surfer and should have at least one mark on him. He caught me looking him over and his eyes swept my body. Heat flushed my system from head to toe and I immediately got out bowls to serve lunch.