Baby. The word burns my mind like an after-image from gazing at the sun, blotting out everything else.
Quietly, I vanish into the bedroom without a sound. Michael hasn’t seen me hidden here in the shadows, and yet I’ve seen so much.
Chapter Twenty-Four: Michael
Sitting in a ramshackle seafood restaurant overlooking the Pacific, it’s just Rebecca, Andrea, and me. Everyone else shoved off for home late this Sunday afternoon. I’m excited we’ve got a few days to ourselves, a few days when we can keep forming this tentative family we’re making together.
Packing up his Explorer, blond hair askew with wind and sun block, Casey seemed sad to go. He lingered a long time, particularly with Rebecca, which made me smile. I think they’re becoming regular buddies; I could tell he was proud of her for nearly making it up on that surfboard.
“Next time, I’ll get you onto your feet,” he told her with an awkward hug.
“I can’t wait,” she said, smiling at me. Marti and Dave were easy, but winning over crusty Casey Porter is a true accomplishment. She should feel good about it.
Marti hugged her too, kissing her cheek and promising to phone her this week about a “girl’s day out”. Rebecca is weaving easily into the fabric of my world, which both pleases and ultimately unsettles me, for reasons I don’t entirely understand.
Drumming my fingers on the tabletop, I stare out at the beach. I’ve been to this same restaurant with Alex dozens of times. We came here even before we were together, when we were just friends hanging out down at Casey’s place. Alex whispered, “Gay friendly,” in my ear that first time, and I stared at him, kind of surprised. He explained, “Owner’s a gay guy. Lots of gay staff.” I got from his explanation that it wasn’t like a gay bar or restaurant, just a place where he and his crew could feel comfortable. Later I understood it was a place where the two of us could feel comfortable too.
So it’s unsettling to sit here now with this woman who I’m beginning to imagine as my wife. Been a long damn time since I thought of spending my life with anyone other than Allie, and glancing around at the familiar surroundings, I feel a little guilty. Like I’m stepping out on Alex or something. If the owner—a guy named Vince Peters who was always friends with us—spots me, I’ll feel busted for sure.
“You okay?” Rebecca studies me closely from the other side of the table. Maybe my expression was more transparent than I realized. Andrea inserts pegs in an IQ test game, lost in concentration.
I give her a weak smile. “Yeah, baby. Fine. Totally fine.” I don’t feel fine inside: I feel guilty, coming here with her. Without him.
That emotion is already gaining life within me, when our waiter appears—and spooks me completely. A redheaded young kid, he looks a hell of a lot like Alex. Glancing at Andrea, I wonder if she notices too, but she’s caught up in the game she’s playing. She looks up with marginal interest, the same level of curiosity she’d grant a seashell discovered on the sand.
I wonder why she can’t see it, this eerie resemblance the waiter bears to Allie? Am I the only one feeling spelled here?
He can’t be thirty yet, maybe only twenty-seven or so. Roughly the age Alex was when we first met, with the same coppery hair cropped close along the nape of his neck, like wiregrass to the touch. Of course, Alex’s style was more disheveled and rowdy despite the close cut—never completely a doctor’s look. And of course Allie certainly never had a twangy Texas accent, all range and open prairie, not like this wild-eyed cowboy kid does when he greets us.
Still, it’s irrelevant what he’s wearing or how old or how tall he is—or even what he sounds like. From the moment he grins at me, a broad winsome expression filling his thoroughly freckled face, my heart leaps right out of my chest.
I bump into Alex all the time: in shopping malls, at the grocery store, on the studio lot. He’s in a thousand crowds of people, in a thousand different faces, no matter which way I look. But this time is different. This fresh-faced kid reminds me more of Alex Richardson than any single man I’ve encountered since the day he died. Only when he asks again if we want to hear the dinner specials do I realize I’m gawking—not listening—and stare down at my hands to hide my intense emotions.
“Sure,” Rebecca interjects, helping. I look to her, lost, wondering if she realizes, and there’s an unexpected, sad expression on her face even as there’s something tender there. God, please don’t let all my careful little pieces come undone, not here in front of them all.
I mumble something incoherent without looking up, placing my order for fried shrimp by memory.