Summer Skies and Ocean Eyes

He was exotic. With pitch black eyebrows and curly hair that fell into his dark, cocoa eyes, he looked at everything with a smoldering expression like he was about to romance it: the bowl of peas to the right of his plate, the umbrella that covered us on the back porch, and the bug that he swatted off his shoulder.

Admittedly, I stared a lot, having to be kicked under the table more than once by Kendall. She wasn’t as easily distracted as I was with her mother’s Spanish boyfriend, Fernando.

Fernando who spoke with a sexy accent, and who wore a cotton white shirt with the first five or so buttons opened, revealing smooth caramel skin. My eyes lingered around the crook of his neck.

Kendall kicked me again.

Clearing my throat, I turned my attention back to my plate. The polite conversation that Jon, Mom, and Victoria had been carrying on came back into focus. Everyone was speaking carefully, like reciting lines from a dialogue. Kendall was abnormally quiet, and Griffin was pointedly putting all of his effort into eating.

“So, tell me, Laura,” Veronica started, emphasizing my mother’s name. “What had you been doing in Michigan prior to moving down here?”

“I worked at a retail store,” Mom breezily replied without hesitation. Ms. Dubois’ lips tightened like someone had squeezed lemon juice onto her front teeth. Now that the two of them were sitting so close to each other, I couldn’t help but notice what a stark contrast they were.

Both were beautiful, but a different kind. Every part of Veronica was polished and clean, assembled in a way that made it clear she had put time and effort into every inch. Then Mom was all-natural. Her hair waved beautifully without much brushing, her cheeks always had a natural rosy tint, and her eyelashes were dramatically long and thick without the need for mascara.

“A retail store,” Laura repeated, rolling the words around her tongue. It was like she was waiting for Mom to be embarrassed. Mom nodded, taking a cool sip of her drink as a splash of a breeze flittered her hair around. “And do you plan on working while you are down here?”

I frowned. Again, it was that light tone of voice that Veronica used as a mask for the venom. Jon discreetly cleared his throat, making a show of picking up the mashed potatoes and dabbing a glob onto his plate. “These are fantastic, Laura. I can’t get enough. Would you like some more, Fernando?”

Fernando stared at Jon, romancing him with his eyes, then shook his head. “No, gracias. I can no eat many carb.” Then Fernando went back to seductively staring at his plate.

Jon nodded and sat the bowl back down, digging into his pile of seconds.

“Yes, I eventually plan on working.” Determined to ignore Jon’s attempt of changing the conversation, Mom charged ahead. “One of my friends does work with The Boys and Girls club. I’ve been volunteering with them, but hopefully a real position will open up soon.”

Veronica raised an eyebrow. “Interesting. I guess anything is really a step-up from folding clothes and taking returns.” She chuckled like she expected the rest of us to join in any minute. Fernando humored her with a sultry laugh, though I doubted he had any clue what was going on.

For the first time since standing toe-to-toe with Ms. Dubois, I saw Mom falter. The confident gleam that had been there moments earlier blinked. “Yes. Well, I worked with some very amazing people.”

“Mm, I’m sure.” Veronica warmly nodded. “Actually, Kendall, speaking about amazing people reminds me. I actually got to sit in on a meeting between Stefano Gabbana and the head of my photography agency.”

Kendall looked up, eyes widening. “Stefano Gabbana? As in Dolce and Gabbana?”

As Ms. Dubois nodded, I saw Jon place a comforting hand on Mom’s shoulder. They exchanged a quiet look as Kendall and her mother started gushing back and forth about the incident.

Inwardly sighing, my eyes couldn’t help but gravitate to Fernando. He was checking out his reflection in one of the spoons, raising it to eye-level to check his hair. The man couldn’t have been but six or seven years older than me, making him seem like more of a pet than a boyfriend to Ms. Dubois.

Luckily, almost everyone’s plates were cleaned off. The dinner would draw to a close soon, and Veronica and Rico Suave would retreat to the overly-presumptuous hotel they were staying at.

“Laura, I was thinking that you and I could perhaps go shopping this afternoon. Maybe we could go to my favorite spa.”

Veronica was finished talking with Kendall, turning her attention back to my mom. I dropped my fork to my plate, causing a clatter that diverted everyone’s attention besides Ms. Dubois and mom. They were staring each other down with faux smiles, creating a tension that I could have ice cream-scooped out of the air between them.

“Sounds great,” Mom said, copying Veronica’s lukewarm tone. I looked at Jon, waiting for him to intervene, come to the rescue—anything that would stop Mom from spending a whole evening with his ex-wife. But all he did was uncomfortably sit there, looking no older than Poot or Tommy.

I didn’t realize my gaze had shifted back to Fernando until he wiggled uncomfortably beneath my glare. Pouting out his lower, pillowy lip, he raised one eyebrow. “Si?”

Kendall kicked my shin again.

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

After Mom and Veronica had driven off in the convertible—Veronica making sure to speak in a loud voice as she marveled over how nice of a car Jon had bought her—I slipped into Kendall’s room. She was sitting on her bed, blankly staring at her laptop.

“Hey.” I sat with my back against her wall, facing her as I pulled my legs to my chest. Her cell buzzed from her dresser, it was literally the most space I had ever seen between her and her phone. Kendall didn’t even glance up from where she sat. “Are you okay?”

She shrugged, gathering her hair and twisting it, then pulling it forward to rest on her right shoulder. “Mom stuff. You saw what happened out there.” Kendall looked down, tracing her fingers against something beside her on her comforter. Craning my neck, I saw a pile of shiny pamphlets glistening back at me.

“What’s that?”

Kendall sighed, tapping her nails against them. “Stuff Mom brought me. Designer schools. Internships with fashion leaders in New York and Los Angeles. She’s pulling all of her strings to try and get me out of what she calls my ‘Science Slump.’”

“Fantastic. She obviously knows you well enough to-”

“Hey,” Kendall said sharply, cutting my sarcasm short. Realizing how harsh that one word had come out, she managed to lighten up the storm that crossed her brow. “Sorry. It’s just...I know how ridiculous she can be, but she’s still my mom, you know?”

Fidgeting with one of the pamphlets on top, she folded the corners down. “It’s stupid. I know she really wants the best for me, and so in a way, I just want to please her. Make her happy. Proud.” Her confused stare linked with mine.

“But you know there’s a difference between what she thinks and what you know,” I said quietly. “No one knows better than you what would be best.”

She nodded, pulling her eyes away as she continued to fold and crease the pamphlet, making it smaller and smaller.

“I just don’t know what to think when she comes home. I’m so angry at her for leaving, and for being away all the time. But then I’m happy and like, relieved when she’s finally here. I want to be pissed at her, but it’s all smothered when we’re in the same room.” Her hand closed tightly around the ball of wrinkled paper.

I knew she was waiting for me to say something, like I always did, but no words of advice or comfort came to mind. Her phone vibrated on her dresser again, moving an inch to the side by the power of it. She sighed, sliding off her bed and getting to her feet.

Walking to the dresser, she picked up the phone. Without looking, Kendall chucked the wadded pamphlet into the trash. “So we should probably go shopping or something.”

I felt literally pushed by the way her voice changed back to normal. She scurried around her room, texting while changing her shirt and pulling a pair of sequined flip flips out of her closet. I had only just stood to my feet when Kendall checked herself once more in her full-length mirror, then strode past me. “I’m waiting in your car, hurry up.”

Lost in the aftereffect, I stared at the remaining pamphlets on her bed, still trying to come up with something I could say to her. Something to make it better. To shed light on the situation a different way that could help reassure her.

But I had nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

I guess she was right, the least I could do was take her shopping.

Fifteen minutes later, after we had decided to go to a shopping district known as The Square, it became clear that I was going to need an accomplice. There was no way I could make it alone with Kendall, shopping in every store she was listing as we neared the complex.

Finding the number, I pushed Call.

“Hello?”

“How do you feel about Jimmy Choo?” I asked Tommy, once again turning down my radio as Kendall tried to sneak the volume back up. It was hard juggling everything at once: from driving, to talking on my phone, to battling with the Barbie Monkey who insisted on toying with all the buttons on my dashboard.

“Is this a trick question?” Tommy asked cautiously on the other end. His voice was flatter than usual, but I tossed that mildly unimportant thought to the back of my mid.

“Kendall and I are heading to The Square, and I was wondering if you wanted to meet us there,” I explained, coming to a stop at an intersection. Kendall notched up the air conditioning, to which I responded by gently slapping her hand before turning it back down. I got enough arctic air at the house, I didn’t need my car to be turned into an igloo on wheels.

“I think I’ll skip out on this one,” Tommy tonelessly replied, not even bothering to come up with a sarcastic answer. The light turned green, I put the car into motion again and gulped down my surprise at his lack of teasing.

“I thought maybe the two of us could get slushies while Kendall does her thing.” I received a solid punch in the shoulder from the willowy girl. Throwing her a warning glare, I almost forgot to pay attention to the road.

“Calico. I have a lot of things to do today.” He spoke to me like I was a child. The finality and agitation of his voice made my mind sputter, he clearly didn’t want to hang out with me today. This was a major change from last night, when the two of us had played in the ocean for two hours straight while the moon bounced off our skin in an outer-galactic way.

“Okay,” I deficiently said, struggling to pretend I wasn’t put-off by his snippy answer. “Cool. Right. I—” I drew out the “I” while my mind pulled at possible ways to casually say goodbye. “—I guess I’ll talk to you later.”

“Yeah, bye.” Tommy barely waited for me to say the last word before he hung up. Pushing my tongue against my bottom teeth, I reluctantly shut my phone before dropping it a bit too hard into the cup holder.

Kendall glanced down as I gripped the steering wheel with both hands, lost in thoughts of what could possibly be wrong now. Of course, there was always the chance that he was in a bad mood and actually had things to do, but I had a bad feeling about this. Whatever it was.

“So I’m guessing your boyfriend isn’t coming,” Kendall said, twisting a swift of bright blonde hair around her index finger. I tapped my fingers impatiently against the leather wheel as the car in front of me slowed for no apparent reason.

It was strange hearing Tommy being referred to as my boyfriend. I wasn’t sure if we were even close to that level of commitment. Nothing was straight with him: a solid yes or no. There were too many shades of gray in-between, leaving me to constantly guess where we stood with each other.

“Nope. Looks like I’m going to have to drink two slushies now to make up for his absence.” I tried to sound chipper, it would be embarrassing to admit how hard Tommy had shot me down.

“He’s being an asshole, isn’t he?” she asked, cutting straight to the chase. My shoulders slumped at the force of her bluntness.

“No. Now don’t bother me. I’m driving,” I lightly shot out, staring hard at the bumper of the car in front of me. Kendall took her time in replying, turning in her seat so that her back was pressed against the passenger side door. I ignored her wide-eyed stare—which I realized looked just like Veronica’s—wishing we were at The Square so I could distract her with Jon’s credit card.

“Probably having an off day. He seems like a drama queen, anyway. Don’t worry about it.”

It was hard listening to the advice of a girl who had actually started to tear up this morning when she realized she lost her favorite tube of lip gloss. But, as I silently agreed, I looked over to see that she was sneaking up the volume on the radio.

For what seemed to be the hundredth time during this drive, I slapped her wrist and adjusted the toggle. “Thank you.”

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼

I still don’t understand how this happened.” I smiled at Poot, moving toward him with the hose. I held it over my feet so that with each step I took, chilly tap water spilled over my skin. “It looks like you got more paint on yourself than the shed.”

He grinned, skin crinkling around his sky blue eyes. Like Tommy, there was a certain unidentifiable edge to Poot today that made me a little off-kilter. I was beginning to know him better than to be fooled by his easygoing smile.

“That would be because I poured the paint on my body, then pushed myself against the shed. It’s all about tact.”

“Ah, so it was quite the love affair,” I teased, pressing my thumb against the opening of the hose to cause the water to spray out in the shape of a cone. Poot was covered, head to toe, in the sage green paint that matched the color of the house. It made him look like an alien, especially with his shocking eyes staring at me from under the green.

“You could say that I’ve gotten a little to close to that thing over the summer,” Poot gamely replied, squishing his eyes shut as I sprayed the water at his face. After lowering the hose, Poot focused on cleaning himself off while I looked at the finished product.

“It’s weird that you’re working on the shed tonight, instead of in the morning, like usual,” I commented, raising my eyes to look at the yellow-white glow of the evening starting to set in. The clouds stretching above us were starting to look pearly.

Poot paused, his hands tangled in his mess of dirty blonde-green hair. “We promised Jon we’d finish it before the summer was over. I don’t know if you know this, Cal, but school’s coming up fast.” He set his hands in motion again as paint trailed down his body in Amazon-like rivers.

“You could have at least let Tommy help you with painting today.” I tried to sneakily insert in the name of Poot’s missing friend. He shrugged as the glass smile on his face broke into a lopsided line.

“Yeah, well he had a rough day today. We went down to surf most of the morning, then by lunch, he went home,” he said lowly, hand brushing up and down his arm.

Without meaning to, I dropped the hose’s angle, aiming it at the ground. “He’s been home since lunch?”

Poot slowly lowered his hands, aware that he had said something that didn’t make sense to me. Crossing his wet arms, he crinkled his nose. “Yes?”

I looked down at the stream of water, glurping against the ground as it made contact. Had Tommy lied to me?

“What’s wrong?” Poot asked, taking a step toward me. I opened my mouth, still trying to decide on what had happened. I didn’t want to be clingy, or make a big deal out of something that I should simply toss over my shoulder.

But I had thought he sounded strange over the phone.

“So Tommy had a bad day?” I ignored his question, probably confusing Poot more. He nodded once as I squelched my toes into the soaked grass.

“Yeah. Uh, regular problems with his dad. We only hung out for a little bit—after a while, he just wanted space, like always.” Poot sat on his words for a couple long seconds, then nodded another time. “Like always.”

I squeezed the hose in my hand, feeling the rush of the water as it barreled down the tube. Problems with his dad. The thought of it made all of my muscles tighten with a sickness that spread far and wide from my stomach.

“Did—” I couldn’t form words for the rest of the question, but Poot knew what I was asking.

“Yeah. At least, I’m pretty sure. He was wearing a wetsuit, so I couldn’t really tell, but...” he trailed off. It felt like someone had cup open my head then used the freezing water from the hose to fill me from my toes to forehead.

“I’m so tired of it, you know?” Poot could barely be heard over the gush of water spurting from the hose. “I’m sick of letting things happen. I just want him to be okay. But it just happens over and over again and I don’t know how much longer I can—”

Crack by crack, Poot’s true emotions surfaced. Every piece of worry that I had felt about Tommy came pouring through Poot. It made me feel uneasy, to hear how his voice wavered as his whole body shrunk by an inch or two.

I watched the water trail down from the hose, catching the evening glow and gleaming quirkily before exploding against the ground. The same thought was trampling through my mind. It if hurt so much to deal with now—only a summer into living here—how much will it kill me to see it happen in the months to come? I didn’t know if I could put up with it as long as Poot has.

It made me think of when Emily and I had sat in her backyard, at the ocean’s edge. She sanded her board, and I wondered if I would ever end up doing something to truly help Tommy.

Maybe now was the time to find out. I wouldn’t just be helping Tommy, either, but hopefully Poot as well.

“I’m going to talk to him.” The sentence burst out of my mouth as I pushed the hose back up so it was aimed at Poot. He jumped in surprised, but just as quickly dismissed it and started cleaning himself up again.

“Good luck with that,” he grumbled, now wasting no energy to pretend to smile. Sucking in a deep breath of air and holding it within my lungs, I nodded.

I had a feeling I was going to need a lot more than luck.

☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼☼