The Art of My Life (16 page)

Aly climbed up the companionway steps
toward a cockpit doused orange with sunset. Another day with no
business. Her purse and laptop thumped against her thigh. Go home,
put in a load of laundry, throw together a salad for dinner…. What
could they do to make money?

Cal stood at the bottom waiting to
follow her through the hatch.

She’d expected today to be awkward
after calling a halt to kissing last night. But sharing space with
Cal all day had been warm and comfortable—bumping into him,
exchanging bits of conversation, hearing him breathe and move
around the cabin. Maybe it was easy for them to revert to their old
friendship because it had always been so comfortable.

She glanced back and caught Cal’s gaze
lasered to the seat of her jeans. He met her eyes and shrugged as
if to say,
It was there. I looked. No big deal.

She hurried up the last step, her mind
hurtling back into his kiss, into his wanting her. Her pulse sped.
Her breaths shortened. No, nothing between them would ever be the
way it used to be.

As Cal stepped through the hatch, Fish
leapt off his boat. “The shrimp are running!” He sprang onto and
off a dock box, zigzagged around the dock like the Cuckoo for Cocoa
Puffs bird. “The shrimp are running!”

Aly laughed.

Fish locked eyes with Cal, then he
darted for the gate. “Shrimp, glorious shrimp!”

Cal gazed after him. “We’ve done a
dozen shrimp runs together. Our fathers bought all of us kids
lifetime fishing licenses before we even went to
school.”

“
How long are you two
going to fight?”

Cal shrugged, and Fish careened back
toward them.

“
Where?” Cal shouted to
Fish.

Fish’s face swung around toward him.
His jaw clenched. He stared hard at Cal. “Between Rattlesnake
Island and the mouth of the Intercoastal.” Fish turned his back,
vaulted back onto his boat and disappeared inside.

“
We’re going. We’ll be up
all night. Run home and get warm clothes, buckets.”

“
What’s the fishing
limit?”

“
Five gallons of
shrimp.”

She plunked down on the cockpit bench
and opened her laptop. “I’m going to find out where I can grab a
fishing license.” While her laptop booted up, she called Missy.
“The shrimp are running. Come fish with us…. Seven…. Great.” She
minimized The-Art-Of-My-Life.blogspot.com, typed
Florida fishing
license
into the Google search window, and looked up at Cal.
“Who else has a license?”

“
Dad, Leaf,
Henna.”

“
Call them.”

Cal wrinkled his forehead at
her.

“
Thirty gallons of shrimp.
Income. Even after everybody has all they can eat tonight, we
should have plenty left to sell at the Farmer’s Market in the
morning.”

Cal grinned. “I love your
brain.”

Her body went still, and warmth
prickled across her chest.

He pulled his phone out of his pocket
and walked toward the bow. “Dad, the shrimp are
running!”

Two hours later, Aly and Missy stood
in the galley cleaning shrimp. A pot of water boiled on the stove,
steaming up the cabin. Footsteps sounded on the deck as the others
dipped their nets into the water where the spotlight illuminated
hundreds of the mini sea creatures.

Missy pinched the head from a shrimp,
peeled off its soft shell and legs, and pushed it across the
cutting board to Aly. “So, why haven’t you dated anyone since
Garner Fritz?”

“
It’s better that way. I
don’t have your self-control.” Aly sliced a knife down the back and
frowned at the dark vein she dug out. “I’ve always admired that
about you. Wished I made your choices.”

Missy’s expression darkened, then
cleared so quickly she must have imagined it. “Don’t be too
impressed.” Missy shot her a wry smile. “After my eighteenth
birthday I came this close” —she held her thumb a fraction of an
inch from the knife blade— “to going over to Fish’s apartment,
standing at the foot of his bed, and stripping down naked to see if
he’d notice I’d grown up.”

Aly laughed. “So, has he
noticed?”

“
Yeah, he’s
noticed.”

“
You don’t sound very
happy about it.”

Missy’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t
want his kisses. I want his heart.” She blew the hair out of her
face and chopped off another shrimp head. “I’m moving to Peru when
I graduate. Fish’s folks always need teachers at the orphanage.
I’ve got to get away if I’m ever going to get over him.” She eyed
Aly. “Anything going on with you and Cal? I want you for a
sister.”

“
It’s
complicated.”

“
Oh? Sounds like an
improvement to me.”

Aly smiled. “Yeah, maybe it
is.”

When they docked, Cal’s family trooped
off the boat. Henna yawned. Leaf chattered about the cops stopping
people just for being out at this time of night.

Cal hooked Missy with the crook of his
arm around her neck. “Thanks, Sissy-Missy—and for taking such good
care of my car, filling her up.” His voice sounded choked at the
end.

Missy elbowed him in the ribs and he
let go. “You’re just lucky tomorrow is Saturday.”

Missy still smiled when she looped an
arm through her father’s and leaned her head on his
shoulder.

A phantom pang of longing for Daddy
shot through Aly.

Jackson looked at Cal. “Thanks for
calling. I haven’t shrimped in years. It was… entertaining.” He
shot a glance at Leaf and Henna squabbling down the dock, and they
all laughed.

“
Thanks everybody.” Cal
dropped an arm over Aly’s shoulder.

Aly snuggled into his warmth and let
the pain Missy and Jackson had spurred ebb. She should break away,
but it felt too good.

The family got into their cars, and
Cal faced her. One hand rested on her waist. His mouth moved toward
hers. He stopped short of her lips. Tired eyes searched hers. He
let go, disappointment etching his expression before he hid it.
“Stay over. You can have the fore bunk.”

Aly nodded.

Below deck, Cal looked over his
shoulder as he headed for his bunk. “If you’re too cold, you can
sleep in here.” He pulled his sweatshirt over his head, exposing
the top of his tattoo as his T-shirt rode up. “I’m too tired to do
anything….” Cal stared at her for another second, his eyes hopeful,
then turned and went into his cabin.

“
Why won’t you show me
your tattoo?”

Cal looked back at her and tugged his
T-shirt over the tattoo.

“
We’ve talked about
everything at one time or another. Is it bad art? Elvis? What could
possibly embarrass you after we shared my pregnancy
scare?”

Indecision wavered in Cal’s face.
“Okay, I’ll tell you. Sometime. Not tonight.” He dropped onto his
bunk.

Aly eyed the open door warily. Her
mind flooded with the sensation of falling asleep in Cal’s arms. A
tide sucked her toward Cal. He’d give her a sleepy smile and open
his arms.

No. She’d told him not to kiss her. If
she climbed into his bunk, there would be more than kissing… no
matter how tired they were. She dragged her gaze away from Cal’s
bare foot hanging off the bunk and reached for a sketch pad lying
on the table to change the direction of her thoughts.

She opened the pad to the sketch of
her in glasses, gazing at her laptop. He’d drawn it on one of her
first days as his partner. She studied her eyes and mouth, eerily
like looking in the mirror—not just the physical, but who she was
inside. Cal really knew her.

He’d shaded her T-shirt where it
stretched across her breasts. The effect warmed her. Even if she
didn’t have his kisses or the male appreciation she’d caught on his
face earlier as proof, this drawing revealed Cal’s attraction to
her. Intuitively, she knew his care for her went deeper than
physical attraction. But every other guy she’d known had dropped
her. How could Cal, with all his issues, be any
different?

She flipped the page. A dolphin arced
out of the water. The next page captured the South Causeway
pummeled by rain. She thumbed through the rest of the pad—a pelican
perched on a piling, the jetty jutting into the Atlantic, the beam
of white across Ponce Inlet from the lighthouse, Ocean’s Seafood
restaurant at sunrise.

An idea flashed through her, knocking
out desire for Cal or sleep. She grabbed her purse and keys and
tip-toed up the companionway.

Cal headed another shrimp, shoved the
body into the Ziploc bag on the scale, and chucked the head into a
bucket at his feet. He’d give the chum to Fish, payback for telling
him where the shrimp were running. He pulled the drawstring tighter
on his sweatshirt hood. At least the sun was finally coming
up.

He’d drifted in and out of
consciousness, aching to feel Aly in his arms all night. But she
never appeared. Maybe the honeyed lava from their kisses only shot
through his veins. Maybe Aly didn’t want heat if it came from him.
Maybe friendship was all Aly wanted. He should have spared himself
the anguish and not even suggested she sleep in his
bunk.

A half-dozen more and he’d have twenty
pounds of shrimp headed. The headed shrimp would bring five dollars
a pound, and the other ninety pounds, four dollars a pound. The
sooner they sold, the sooner he could sleep. He really should have
told Aly the shrimp limit was five gallons per boat, but he hadn’t
had the heart to shoot down her idea. At least they didn’t get
caught. Yet.

Where was Aly? Had he pissed her off
last night?

On the corner, Ken Scragg from Scragg
Groves lined up bottles of juice next to a basket of oranges. The
organic bakery truck pulled up and belched exhaust fumes on
Cal.

He sealed the bag of shrimp and tossed
it into the ice-filled garbage can.

The Oak Hill Seafood Co-op van rolled
to a stop at the other end of the lot. Garner Fritz—Aly’s almost
baby-daddy—hefted his football-player girth out of the truck.
Chances were nil the moron would miss Cal bootlegging shrimp less
than a hundred yards away. The three-hours-of-sleep gravel in the
bottom of his stomach churned.

Aly rounded the bakery truck, grinning
like they’d already sold their shrimp. Walmart bags hung from her
arms. “You, John Calvin Koomer, are genius.” She kissed him full on
the lips. She spun around, strode to the bakery truck window, and
ducked her head inside.

Whoa. What happened to no
kissing?

Aly pulled her head and a bakery bag
out of the truck. “Thanks. I’ll pay you in a minute.” She waved at
whoever she’d spoken to in the truck.

Aly pulled clothesline from a bag and
strung it between the bakery truck and a tree. “You know the sketch
pads you had lying around the boat? I matted the drawings on card
stock, and we’re going to sell them for twenty-five dollars a pop.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Cal as she clothes-pinned his
drawings to the cord. “You okay with that?”

Cal shook the kiss out of his head and
dredged up her question. “As if anybody would want to pay money for
them.”

“
They will.” Aly lobbed
him a smile that fried the chill off his morning. Maybe she’d
rethought the kissing ban.

She glanced at her phone. “It’s
showtime—seven a.m. Quick, make a sign.” She handed Cal cardstock
from one of the bags and a Sharpie still in its package.

He wiped his hands on his jeans and
found a dry spot on the table.

“
Get your large Oak Hill
Reds here! Caught last night,” Aly announced to the flannel-clad
mother and daughter who stumbled toward the scent of coffee coming
from the bakery truck.

“
Shh. The Seafood Co-op
will turn us in.”

“
Then hurry up with the
sign, Rembrandt.”

Aly sold drawings at a steady clip,
zinging him with I-told-you-so’s while he headed a million
shrimp.

He should be glad his art was making
money, but it rankled that the shrimp he’d headed weren’t selling,
and Aly’s idea was. What were they going to do with a hundred and
twenty pounds of shrimp on their hands?

Morning sun burned off night. Cal
grabbed another muffin out of Aly’s bag.

A fit, blonde guy his folks’ age
squinted at the Ocean’s Seafood restaurant drawing for a good five
minutes. He raked his eyes over their stall, his gaze catching on a
painting of Aly’s mother’s house Cal had done for Aly years
ago.

Aly’d propped the charcoals he’d given
her for her birthday against a cord. Would she sell those,
too?

“
How much for a full-sized
painting?”

Cal opened his mouth to answer, but
Aly spoke. “Five hundred.”

The man’s eyes widened. His gaze
panned to the painting of Aly’s house, the Ocean’s Seafood drawing,
back at Aly.

Aly held the man’s gaze and smiled.
“Half up front. Half at completion.”

The guy slid his checkbook from the
back pocket of his Levis. “I’d like Clancy’s Cantina, the view of
the restaurant from Flagler Avenue. When is delivery?”

Aly looked at Cal.

“
I’ll have it done by
Christmas at the latest.” Cal wiped shrimp guts off his hand with a
rag and held it out. “Cal Koomer, artist.”

“
Matt Clancy, owner of
Clancy’s Cantina.”

They shook. Aly introduced herself as
Cal’s business partner, thanked him for his patronage, and
bequeathed a thousand-watt smile on him.

Matt Clancy ambled past the baskets
and visor stalls.

Cal eyed Aly. “Five hundred
dollars?”

She shrugged. “If a person pays with
no hesitation, you’ve asked too little. He paused just long enough.
I nailed it.”

Cal glanced up and saw Garner Fritz,
marching toward them. The bottom of his white-blonde buzz peeked
from under an Oak Hill Seafood Co-op cap. Cal’s stomach knotted,
choking the elation he’d felt over Aly’s commissioning a
painting.

Aly had humiliated Gar when she caught
him cheating on her. Maybe it was his imagination, but he read
revenge in the stiff set of Gar’s shoulders.

Gar stopped in front of their stall,
blocking out the sun. “Bootlegging will get you fined.”

Cal glared into Gar’s mirrored
sunglasses and saw two of himself. “You’d have to sell something
for it to be called bootlegging.”

“
Maybe we should ask the
authorities.”

Cal was about to mention that
authorities
was a big word for a guy with Gar’s limited
intelligence.

Aly stepped into Gar’s personal space.
“Hi, Gar. Kinda weird how we live in the same town and haven’t seen
each other for two years.”

He shifted from one foot to the other.
“Yeah, well….”

“
You still with
Carina?”

His mouth tightened. “I didn’t walk
over here to talk about who I’m seeing.”

“
Did you come to find out
if I was pregnant when we broke up?”

Color drained from Gar’s face and he
fell back a step. His eyes darted around the stall as if he were
looking for a child. “Were you?”

Aly stared Gar down.

Cal could almost smell Gar’s
fear.

Aly took a deep breath and let it out.
She glanced at Cal and back at Gar. “No. You left me herpes
instead.”

Shock registered on Gar’s face, then
his eyes shifted to the side, giving away his guilt. His cheeks
splotched red under albino whiskers that sparked with morning sun.
He spun and strode back to his booth.

Aly folded her arms across her chest.
“Guess we can sell our shrimp in peace now.”

The quiver in her lip showed how much
the performance had cost her. Herpes. At least it wasn’t something
worse. “You didn’t have to do that. We could have given everyone we
knew frozen shrimp for an early Christmas gift.”

“
You already know
everything else there is to know about me.” Aly stared at the
produce in the stall across the aisle, her cheeks pale, jaw tight.
“It felt good to embarrass Gar. He had it coming.”

He’d almost been disappointed Aly
hadn’t conceived Gar’s child. “I would have married you if you’d
been pregnant.”

“
What about
Evie?”

“
There would have been no
Evie.”

A rap sounded on the table and Cal’s
head swiveled toward the sound.

“
Oak Hill Red’s, huh? How
much you got?”

Cal eyed the hard-living face, gray
beard, stocking cap, and shorts. “Jimmy, good to see you. This is
Aly. Jimmy co-owns the Dolphin View restaurant. I have a hundred
and ten pounds—twenty of it headed—caught last night, kept on ice.
Five dollars a pound for the headed, four dollars for the rest.
What do you say?”

“
You head all the shrimp,
deliver, and I’ll buy the lot for four hundred.”

“
That’s almost a buck
short a pound.”

“
I could buy from the
co-op for full price….”

“
You fry up a couple of
baskets for me and Aly and it’s a deal.”

“
Sold.”

Aly would have scored four-fifty a
pound from Jimmy and gotten a rush out of haggling.

Of course, Aly wouldn’t have married
him—even pregnant. He’d been freshly fired from camp, nursing a
broken infatuation with weed and alcohol. Two and a half years had
barely upped his real estate.