apping. Muscles hanging. It was a mess. And I was so scared I
was going to make it worse, carrying him back to shore. He was heavy and unconscious, and nobody was coming to help. And then the shark doubled back and tried to get my arm too. I managed to hit him and scare him off. Took sixty-nine stiches to sew me back together.”
He unfolds his left arm until it’s extended in front of me, and rucks up the short sleeve of his security guard uniform. ?ere, above the bright red surf watch, are his zigzagging pink scars, bared for my perusal. Looking at them feels pornographic. Like I’m doing something I shouldn’t be doing, and any moment, someone will catch me … but at the same time, I can’t make myself look away. All this golden skin, all these eggshell-glossy scars, a railroad track, crisscrossing miles of sculpted lean muscle. It’s horrifying … and the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
Seeing the scars reminds me of something else about myself. Something I can’t tell him. But it tugs on a dark memory inside me that I don’t want to think about, and a uttering of unstable emotions threatens to break the surface.
I breathe deep to push those feelings back down, and when I do, there’s that scent again, Porter’s scent, the wax and the clean coconut. Not the suntan-lotion fake kind. What is this stuff? It’s driving me nuts. I don’t know if it’s the lure of this wonderful smell, or his story about the shark, or my urge to contain my own unwanted memories, but before I know what I’m doing, my
ngertips are reaching out to trace the jagged edge of one of the
scars by his elbow.
His skin is warm. ?e scar is raised, a tough, unyielding line. I follow it around his elbow, into the soft, sensitive hollow where his arm bends.
All the golden hairs on his forearm are standing up.
He sucks in a quick breath. I don’t think he meant to, but I heard it. And it’s then that I know I crossed some kind of line. I snatch my hand back and try to think of something to say, to erase what I just did, but it just comes out as a garbled grunt. And that makes things even weirder between us.
“Break,” I nally manage. “Gotta get back.”
I’m so embarrassed, I stumble over my chair as I leave. ?e ensuing metallic grate of metal on slate echoes through the café, causing several museum guests to look up from their afternoon coffee. Who’s artful now, Rydell? ?at never happens to me. I’m not clumsy. Ever, ever, ever. He’s messing with my game. I can’t even look at him anymore, because my face is on re.
What is happening to me? I swear, every time I have any interaction whatsoever with Porter Roth, something always goes screwy. He’s an electrical outlet, and I’m the stupid toddler, always trying to poke around and stick my nger inside.
Someone needs to slap a big DANGER! sign on that boy’s back before I electrocute myself.
LUMIÈRE FILM FANATICS COMMUNITY
PRIVATE MESSAGES>ALEX>NEW!
@mink: Have you ever had a serious girlfriend? @alex: Yes. I think. Sort of. What do you qualify as serious? @mink: Hey, you’re the one who said yes. I was just curious. How long and why did you break up?
@alex: Three months and the short story is she said I didn’t want to have fun anymore.
@mink: Ouch. The long story?
@alex: Her idea of fun included hooking up with my best friend when I was out of town.
@mink: I don’t know what to say. I’m sorry. @alex: Don’t be. I’d checked out. It wasn’t all her fault. If you don’t pay attention to things, they wander off. I learned my lesson. I’m vigilant now. @mink: Vigilant with who?
@alex: I think you mean with WHOM. @mink: :P
@alex: No one in particular. I’m just saying, I’m not the same person I used to be. I confessed; now your turn. Anyone you’ve been vigilant about in the past?
@mink: A couple of guys for a couple of weeks, nothing major. Now I pretty much look out for myself. It’s a full-time job. You’d be surprised. @alex: One day you might need some help.
“You see how picky I am about my shoes, and they only go on my feet.”
—Alicia Silverstone, Clueless (1995)
8
I don’t work with Porter for the next few shifts. Grace, either, which bums me out. ?e museum sticks me with some older lady, Michelle, who’s in her twenties and has problems counting her cash fast enough. She’s slowing down the line and it’s driving me crazy. Crazy enough to march up to Mr. Cavadini’s office, peer around the corner … and then just change my mind and clock out for the day instead of saying anything.
?at’s how I roll.
One morning, instead of roaming the boardwalk, Sherlocking my way from shop to shop, stuffing my face with churros, I spend it pummeling Dad in two rounds of miniature golf. He took a half day off from work to hang with me, which was pretty nice. He gave me the choice of either the golf or paddleboarding —and no way in heaven or hell was I dipping my toe in the ocean after hearing Porter’s tale of terror on the high seas. Nuh-uh. I told Dad the whole story, and he was a little freaked himself. He said he’d seen Porter’s dad outside the surf shop and knew the family were surfers, but just assumed the missing-arm incident had happened a long time ago. He had no idea how it went down, or that Porter had rescued him.
