The Art of My Life (2 page)

As they passed the New Smyrna Beach
City Limits sign, Mom glanced at him. “I don’t have to tell you
that whatever you do in this town sticks to you for the rest of
your life. Promise me you’ll never smoke pot again. Salvage what’s
left of your reputation.”

He’d always been
The Scream
to
Mom’s
American Gothic
. “
Your
reputation. I don’t care
about mine.”

“How can you go to jail, have to
report a record every time you apply for a job—”

“Leave it, Mom.”

“Is pot why you never got through
college?”

“I never got through college because I
hated everything but art classes.”

“Maybe you’re self-medicating for
ADHD—”

“I can paint a canvas for six hours
straight.”

“Or bi-polar. You’ve always been
mercurial.”

“Yeah, I get it from you.”

“Funny.” She didn’t crack a smile as
she wheeled the van into a marina parking space.

He could sure use a good smoke about
now. Maybe it
was
time to quit weed. But it wouldn’t be
because his mother extracted a promise. It was his own damn
life.

Mom killed the engine.

The car popped and crackled in the
silence.

“Cal.”

He gripped the armrest, poised to
escape.

“We want to give you a shot at making
something of your life.”

His failures throbbed in the car, the
ones she’d spoken and the ones left unsaid—his part-time job at
Stoney’s Ink Slab that fell short of Mom’s idea of a career, his
want of religion. Did the list ever end?

“We moved your stuff from Henna’s
place to the boat. She kept your studio set up, so you can still
paint there whenever you want.”

He heard the
but
in her tone,
the word that always followed her praise.

She dug the boat keys out of her purse
and handed them to him. “Your father and I are on the title for now
because you need us to cosign for a startup loan. But if you
default, you’ll have to sell the boat to pay off the
loan.”

The whiskey shot that he was
twenty-five and couldn’t sign for his own loan burned all the way
down. “Fair enough.” He swallowed. “How much is the
loan?”

“We figured forty thousand would cover
repairs and get your business off the ground.”

His head knocked against the headrest.
He’d never had more than two hundred dollars in the bank at one
time. And now he was getting a ninety-thousand-dollar boat and more
money than his brain could compute. Henna had always been wacky
generous, but his folks cosigning a loan—mammoth. Was it a last
ditch effort to shove him into the sausage casing of society? Well,
maybe he was willing this time.

“I drew up a business plan—not so
different from the one I did for my dance studio. We meet with Aly
tomorrow at three to find out if the loan has been approved and
sign the papers.”

He sucked in a breath.
“Aly?”

“Who else would we go to? Aly’s
practically family. She’s a loan officer—”

He wrenched the door open. “Right.” He
stepped out and turned back to face Mom. “Thanks for the lift. The
offer of the loan.” He stared at her, gratitude and shame stopping
up his words, dampening his eyes. “I’ll think about it.”

She opened her mouth to
argue.

He held up a hand. “I said I’ll think
about it.”

Her brows arched into triangles and
her lips pressed into a flat line, but she turned the key in the
ignition.

The minivan eased out of the parking
space, his mother sitting ramrod straight.

He released the air crowding his
chest.

He swung open the pier gate and
breathed in the familiar fishy, gasoline scent of the marina. The
shock of freedom left him feeling exposed.

Afternoon sun baked his shoulders as
he walked, dissolving the weirdness, leaving only a buoy of hope. A
charter business could give him a life. In the next heartbeat the
physical craving to paint washed over him. He inhaled, imagining he
could smell the Vaseline scent of his oils.

Selling his work, someday seeing his
face on the cover of
People
magazine throbbed in his gut.
But it was time to kill that dream. He’d always paint, but Aly
needed a guy who owned yard tools, tires worth rotating; who
carried AAA, Visa, and voter’s registration cards. His stinking
driver’s license wouldn’t even be back in his wallet for another
three months.

If he worked the Plan B his family had
dealt him and succeeded at running a charter sailing business, he’d
gain a shot at Aly.

The only shot he’d ever
get.

His gaze caught on Evie’s beater boat.
The rotted rigging and his guilt flailed around its sail-less mast
like a maypole in the hot breeze. The first part of his new start
had to be ex-ing Evie—the epic mistake of his life—for good this
time. The picture wasn’t pretty, but ninety days sober showed him
he’d been using her.

And now he’d see her every day, living
eight boats apart on the same dock. Well, he was ditching her this
time, like he’d told her six months ago. She’d have to accept
it.

A pelican settled on a piling in a
flurry of clumsy feathers. Cal shook off thoughts of Evie and
grinned. He’d snag a hot dog from Leaf’s stand on the beach—just a
hot dog, no weed—grab his board, find Fish, and hit the waves.
Then, he’d head for Henna’s to paint— enough to get it out of his
system so he could focus on Plan B. Not painting had been punishing
enough.

Frenzied barking erupted from Zeke’s
fishing boat two slips down. Van Gogh! Cal’s chocolate
lab-weimaraner, scrabbled across the gangplank, toenails dancing
against the wood.

Joy bubbled up, something he hadn’t
felt since the arrest. His throat tightened.

Had Mom brought the dog down to the
marina? But what was he doing on Zeke’s boat?

Van Gogh planted his paws on Cal’s
chest, quivering, tail beating a frenzied rhythm against the light
pole. A sandpaper tongue swiped Cal’s chin.

“I’m glad to see you, too, boy.” Cal
scratched soft doggy ears and inhaled canine and river water
scent.

Van Gogh shimmied, wagging his butt
along with his tail.

“I should have known you’d show up
sooner or later.” Fish’s familiar voice.

Cal’s head popped up and warmth pumped
into his chest, washing away the time they’d been apart. It didn’t
matter that Fish hadn’t visited him in jail. Like the hospital, who
liked the lockup anyhow? They’d scarcely gone a day, much less
months, without seeing each other since toddlerhood.

Fish stepped from the fishing boat to
the dock. Wisps of baby-white, surfer hair stuck out from under a
backwards baseball cap that brushed the arch in the
Zeke’s
Fishing Charters
sign.

“Hey.” Cal went for a hug.

Fish shoved a palm against Cal’s
shoulder. His face contorted. “Take your friggin’ dog and clear
out. By the way, I dog-sat for Van Gogh’s sake, not
yours.”

Fish’s harsh tone felt like stepping
on a stingray out of nowhere. Cal’s brow scrunched. “Whoa. What’s
got you pissed? And thanks for taking care of my dog. What? Did Van
Gogh eat your stogies? Do his business in your Corn Flakes? Look,
I’ll pay you for the dog food.”

“You don’t know, do you? You don’t
freakin’ know.” Fish shook his head, incredulous.

“What? What? Tell me.” Cal’s gaze
flicked to
Sean Fisher
scrawled inside the white oval of
Fish’s work shirt.

The grease-stained material flapped
against Fish’s bony ribs in the wind.

“You got me fired,” Fish ground
out.

“How the he—”

“What were you thinking ditching your
weed in my locker? I didn’t even know it was in there.”

A chill slid down Cal’s spine. “You’re
kidding me. Nobody told me.”

“It took me two weeks to get a job
working for Zeke. I lost the apartment. I don’t have family around
to coddle me.” Fish stared him down, stone cold, the same look Cal
had watched Fish give his parents when they’d told him they were
moving to Peru.

Cal dropped back a step, remorse
flushing through him. Throw another failure onto the pile. “I’m
sorry, man. I had no idea.”

“That’s all you have to say?” Disgust
radiated from his eyes.

“Look, it was what? A few joints? I
was taking the rug rats to the beach, and I didn’t want the stuff
anywhere near them. My sister-in-law already thought I was scum.
I’m surprised she let me hang with the kids.”

“Old Man Phillips called the cops.
They hauled me off in the police car right out the front doors of
Circle K.”

“Look, I’m sorry. It won’t happen
again. Ever.”

“You don’t know what you’re
apologizing for.” Fish flung his hands up in the air. “Poof—you
killed my political career before it started. You killed my
future
.”

Cal flinched inwardly. “One arrest
would keep you from running for office?”

A muscle jumped in Fish’s granite
jaw.

There was no use arguing with Fish
when he got like this. “Screw you.” Cal knocked a shoulder into
Fish’s arm, shoving him out of the way and stepped toward the
Escape
. They’d work it out later.

Fish grabbed Cal’s bicep and spun him
back. “Looks like you already did.”

The barb embedded into the soft flesh
of Cal’s gut. He jerked his arm out of Fish’s hold.

“Get Van Gogh’s crap off Zeke’s boat
while I’m gone. We’re done.”

For a millisecond Cal thought he saw
hurt under Fish’s anger.

Fish strode down the pier.

Done? Fire coral and kelp, anger and
grief, wound around each other inside. “Why not stay and watch.
Aren’t you afraid the ex-con will clean you out?” Cal shouted at
his back.

“Get your lousy carcass out of my
life. It’ll be worth whatever you take.”

The comment stabbed deeper than
we’re done
. Fish knew he wasn’t a thief.

Van Gogh nuzzled his hand, and Cal
squatted to the dog’s eye level.

Van Gogh stared placidly into his
eyes, fogging his face with doggy breath. He slurped Cal’s
cheek.

“Thanks, buddy.”

Cal crossed the gangplank onto the
mammoth fishing boat
Zeke’s Ambition
. The cruiser must
stretch fifty feet. He wrinkled his nose at the fish smell clinging
to the bare wooden planks flecked with old paint.

He opened the door, and Van Gogh burst
into the cabin.

“Where’s Fish’s bunk,
buddy?”

As though he understood, Van Gogh
trotted toward a wide shelf over a row of storage lockers where a
sleeping bag spewed across a rectangle of foam rubber.

The ratty red and green plaid lining
shot Cal back to a hundred campouts he’d shared with Fish on
Pelican Island, the crunch of singed hot dog skin between his
teeth, and a brotherhood that went deeper than the blood they’d
dripped from their pointer fingers onto the beach the summer after
third grade. He ran his thumb over the jagged ridge on his index
finger where he and Fish had pocket-knifed their bond into
flesh.

The dog pranced and barked at a roach
while Cal emptied his wallet, one hundred and thirteen dollars from
the pay check he’d cashed the day he got arrested. The bills would
cover dog food and a little extra. He slid the money under Fish’s
pillow. The faint scent of Fish’s sweat drifted toward him,
wrenching him like the final twist of a C-clamp.

He grabbed the half-empty bag of food
and stuffed the dog bowls and multiple pieces of an
“indestructible” Kong dog toy into the bag. With his flip-flop, he
squashed the roach Van Gogh had cornered. “Come on, boy.” Cal
ducked his head through the door into sunlight and came face to
face with Evie on the dock across from him.

Shock registered on her face, then she
screamed. “Cal! You’re out!”

As his foot touched down on the dock,
she barreled into his chest—a flash of breasts, strawberry-blonde
hair, and the scent of vanilla. Her greeting rivaled Van Gogh’s and
almost tottered him into the drink.

Cal set her away from him with one
hand and clutched the twenty-five pounds of dog food and
paraphernalia with the other.

“You’re pissed because I didn’t visit
you.” Her eyes bore into him. “I don’t stinkin’
do
jail.”

His gaze traced the familiar tattooed
daisy petals peeking from her blouse, the stem plunging into the
valley between her breasts. He ripped his attention away. Looking
was what always got him into trouble with Evie. He walked two slips
down and vaulted onto the
Escape
.

Van Gogh trotted across the gangplank,
Evie not far behind.

He glanced at her, scrounging for
words that would make her back off. “Ask Stoney if he’ll rehire
me.” Evie hated doing favors. And doing tats was worth considering
before he signed loan papers below his folks’
signatures.