Caramel Beach (Lessons in Pure Life Book 2) Page 4

  We make our way over to a brawny blond guy who’s wearing hibiscus-printed Vans with his tux, shaking hands with guests like he’s running for office. Those here to party have moved on to the hard stuff, and the early risers are saying their goodbyes to the groom.

  Our arrival prompts a collective Heyyy! I’m introduced amid fist pounding and hugs from every direction.

  “Lia, this is Jack from California,” Diego announces.

  Jack from California grins down at me like I’m a kitten in a champagne glass. His lips are dry when he brushes a salty kiss on each of my cheeks, surprising me with a long, tight hug, like we’re family. He’s got a sunburnt nose that’s been broken more than once, and crooked teeth shatter his smile. What makes him beautiful is the contrast between the jagged lines of his face and green-as-grass doe eyes that beam joyfully at me. He’s all sunshine and energy.

  “What a night, you guys.” His voice is light and raspy, addressing all of us like a good host. “Thanks so much for coming down. It means so much to us.”

  “Right on.” Diego grins some special bro smile for Jack and claps him on the back. It’s so uncharacteristically enthusiastic for him, it’s funny. I like it.

  “This venue is unreal,” I pipe up, gesturing to all the fabulousness.

  “Yeah, gracias, gracias. Mitsuko and me, we’re beach people, and she was like, let’s keep it grounded, west-coast vibes. But, you know, five-star.”

  Jack’s examining me as he replies, a classic bro overview. It’s not unfriendly. He says his wife’s name with Japanese pronunciation, like “Mits-co.”

  “Anyway,” he goes on, “Diego’s gonna get into it with me tonight, right bud? Disco dancin’?”

  Diego laughs uncomfortably. Jack knows him well enough to push the right buttons.

  “Ladies, I gotta borrow the men for a few minutes to meet my brothers, all right? Please, make yourselves at home.”

  “We’re good at that,” says Kat.

  We disperse. I wander the terrace while Kat takes a moment in the ladies’ room. A gorgeous waitress in red satin offers me champagne from a tray. Yes please. Most of the faces here are strangers, but occasionally I see someone familiar and wave, whether or not I remember names. A couple from Pacifica walk right past me; she’s pissed over a brown stain on the front of her dress and he looks guilty, holding a sticky chicken wing. When she’s not looking he gobbles it.

  Beyond the tables a dance floor made up of white squares that light up technicolor beckons me, and it’s there I glimpse the stunning figure in white we’re here to worship. She’s hugging an older Japanese man in a black tux. Mitsuko and her father.

  K-pop blasts through the speakers and a bunch of kids go wild on the dance floor. Mitsuko throws her arms in the air and makes them form a circle around her, laughing with her mouth wide, tiny nose scrunching all cute. They watch her like little girls look up at Kate Middleton, innocently smitten. I nearly am myself. The bride’s dress has a huge ivory tulle skirt that’s covered by a translucent layer of blood red gossamer. The bodice is a ballerina’s, with simple straps that cross at the back and a sweetheart neck down the front, emphasizing her perfect silhouette. Her blue-black hair is swept to one side, nearly liquid. A passionflower sits behind her right ear.

  “Looks like she’s been dipped in Perfect,” Kat mutters in awe, sidling up next to me in black chiffon.

  “Am I staring?”

  “Yeah. But that dress, that hair. Is it a mirage?”

  “Right? I can’t even imagine what it costs.”

  “I know. Hurts just speculating about it. And to think we bought our stuff at the mall.” She elbows me, teasing. “Though your outfit looks like money.”

  “I did bathe in champagne and pearls before we got here.”

  “That’s just asking for a UTI, you know,” she says wryly.

  “Ha-ha. Hey, have you seen my date?”

  “Think I saw him with Jack and his brother Tate. Oh my god,” she grabs my arm. “Look, it’s a margarita bar! Your drink’s almost empty, come on.”

  “Wait. Can I tell you something?”

  Immediately she gets serious, boring her eyes into mine like she can solve the problem with her intensity.

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing. Just … Carter texted me this morning.”

  “What?”

  “Yup.”

  “What does he want?”

  “To apologize. To talk to me. He called me ‘beautiful’ as if we were still together.”

  Her eyes and lips narrow, and she’s tougher than any spaghetti western hero ever was.

  “And what does he want to talk to you about?”

  “Not sure.”

  “How do you feel?”

  “Not sure. I definitely don’t want to talk to him. It’s almost like he was dead and now he’s back to haunt me.”

  “You didn’t say anything to Dieg–”

  “Hell no.”

  She stares thoughtfully at the dance floor, where Mitsuko’s started a conga line. “It might be nothing. He’s probably just going to grovel at you a while so he can sleep at night. But be careful.”

  “I know. I’m trying to put it out of my head completely, at least for tonight.”

  “Good idea. I heard margaritas are good for forgetting.”

  “Well, there goes the neighborhood.”

  Diego

  “Ultras, far out. Thanks, Diego.” Jack claps me on the back.

  The day’s all used up behind him and faded into a thin orange line over the water. It’s the same line I watch when I paddle out. Two sides that meet forever. El fin del mundo.

  “My pleasure. Felicitaciones.”

  We drink to it. I put my cup down and pull the little cutter and plastic lighter from my jacket pocket, sparking us up.

  “Fuck me, that Nicaraguan spice,” Jack comments amorously after a few quiet moments, pulling on his cigar. “Where’d you get them? I’ll surprise Mitsuko’s dad. Deposit some good faith.”

  “Right,” I laugh. “Toto’s. That little place beside the bakery on Santa Antonio, you know?”

  We wander over to a cluster of patio furniture that sits away from the party and costs more than it takes to run my house for the year.

  “Right on, right on.” Jack nods to the beat coming from inside. “Glad you came, bro. I needed some space from the crowd.”

  He turns his back to me and looks out to sea, sliding his hands along the metal railing like it’s a woman’s leg.

  “What’s it like, being at the center of all this?” I gesture loosely with my Ultra at the whole place, the whole night. Toss the umbrella out of the glass I grabbed off a cocktail tray and take another sip. Coconut rum, ugh.

  He pulls off his jacket, sits down on the white couch, and reclines on the heavily stuffed cushions like we’re in his backyard on a Sunday afternoon.

  “It’s fuckin’ weird, to be honest,” he admits, puffing away, watching the smoke make shapes and dissolve. “We don’t really live like this. All the expenses, the showmanship. Mitsuko likes it more than she’ll admit, but a wedding isn’t what we’re about. A wedding is about relatives and free booze.”

  Glass shatters somewhere inside. We laugh at the timing.

  “So the wedding’s not that important to you?” I ask him. Genesis would hit me for asking that question if she were here. She’s not.

  “I didn’t say that,” Jack clarifies. “Mitsuko is my wife. I mean, we figured that out a few months in. Before you know it, six years living together go by and we have our ways pretty well figured out. But her dad and stepmom pushed and pushed. Good for business.”

  “What’s their business?”

  “Hotels,” he replies dryly.

  “That’s all right for you.”

  “Sure. But Mitsuko wants as far out of it as she can get. When they’re around she doesn’t like who she is. A wedding brings up a lot of dust and skeletons, man, all that complicated history. I guess after a few ye
ars go by you feel so married, making it ‘official’ seems like a charade. But I love her, and we finally just said, fuck it, let’s have a party. Get it done, then move on. Start a new chapter.”

  I shake the ice around in my glass. Jack’s entranced by his smoke signals.

  “How did you know she was your wife?”

  That gets his attention, this man in love. He sits up, rolls his sleeves, then picks up my drink and takes a big sip of it.

  “She saved my life, for one thing,” he begins. “Mitsuko did. I’m serious. Cut my arm on a reef at Cyclops and nearly bled to death.”

  “In Australia? Jesuchristo.”

  “Reckless and proud,” he says ironically.

  “What happened?”

  “Ate it bad, lost my sense of up and down. Was getting tossed around like a ragdoll when my elbow hit some coral and split open. Made it to shore on adrenaline before going into shock. Pain like that, it makes you retch. Caught a water taxi to the mainland and by then I was in real rough shape. ’Cause I’m, like, sitting there, all bruised and cut and bleeding out.”

  He laughs incredulously with his fly-catcher mouth open wide like he’s never told the story before.

  “By the time the ambulance is on the way I’ve passed out from the pain.”

  “Brutal.”

  “That’s not even the best part. The lone paramedic dispatched to us in the middle of nowhere steps out of the van all red and choking. Paramedics come in twos, okay? I wipe out on the day his partner doesn’t show up for work. Medic skips his lunch break to save time, grabs take-out on the way.”

  “He choked on his food?”

  “Nah, allergic reaction to peanut fucking satay. Restaurant mixed up his order.”

  “No!”

  Jack nods emphatically.

  “Mitsuko said his tongue was swollen up like a cow’s, like this.” He sticks his tongue out, looking dead. “I regain consciousness to the sight of her stabbing the paramedic with an EpiPen like it’s murder.”

  I shake my head in disbelief.

  “Yep. Mitsuko contacted dispatch. The two of us strapped the paramedic onto the stretcher and loaded him up while he, like, shrank back to normal. She drove the ambulance. Lights, siren, everything. It was in the ER after shit calmed down that I asked her to marry me. You don’t let a girl like that go.”

  “Wow. What did she say?”

  “That I was on morphine but that she’d think about it. And here we are.”

  “Shit, man, that’s a story.”

  He reaches toward me with his left arm and I recoil, confused, until I realize he’s showing me proof. Thick scar tissue puckers from his forearm all along the elbow. Mitsuko’s there, woven into the story of his flesh. They’ve got a real history together. I think about Lia being part of my story.

  “I don’t know how you did it all these years.”

  “Did what?”

  “Made it work. How you make it last. Keep it strong.”

  “Well, none of it happens easy. Sex only takes you so far, but then, that’s a whole other conversation. Meantime, you’ve gotta remember things. Like, thinking the way girls think, respect her perspective, stuff like that. Won’t always make sense but it’s worth it. Your girl’s a dime. Seems real sweet, too.”

  “She is. Lia’s different. Against the odds I run into this girl right at home just when it’s time to get the hell out of there. In another life, I could get serious about her,” I admit.

  “In another life? Bullshit.”

  “I’m leaving Costa Rica,” I announce, saying it out loud for the first time. “The past couple of years I’ve been going backward instead of forward. She’s good for me, but staying in a dead-end life isn’t.”

  “You gotta break your own trail.”

  “Right.”

  “So, when you telling your girlfriend?”

  “She’s not my girlfriend.”

  “She’s your something. I saw the way you look at her.”

  I puff the cigar and taste it without inhaling. “Lia’s got this pull. Right away, she’s the one you want.”

  “She know how you feel?” He shakes his head impatiently when I hesitate. “Dude. What are you waiting for?”

  “I don’t know how to talk about it without getting so serious.”

  “What’s wrong with serious?”

  “Plenty.”

  Talking about life isn’t something I do well. I want a drink in my hand.

  “You invite this Lia out here and she drives down, shows up on your arm in that smokin’ outfit, right? Don’t think she’s here for the free grub.”

  “She’s not an easy person to give up a chance with.”

  “Why do you keep talking like you have to give it up? Bring her with you. Blaze trails together, all that.”

  “Man, she just started her life over to be in the only place I can’t live any longer. What can I offer her?”

  I don’t mention the message from the ex-boyfriend. It gnaws at me like vermin, but alcohol can numb anything. Drown it right out of me.

  “If she’s cool,” he lectures, not without kindness, “she’ll be your friend when you need it. Nothing is more valuable in this life than a strong, intelligent woman, ’specially when she’s good-lookin’.”

  “How do I keep it light, the way she wants it?”

  “And you know what she wants?”

  I have to consider that. “Not really, no,” I reply.

  “Well, don’t waste your time making assumptions. Trust me. Never underestimate the check-in. It’s the gateway to pussy.” He raises his cigar to me. “The more you’re honest with her and yourself, the better it is. Jacky don’t lie.”

  He flags down a server and glances over at me. “Let’s get fucked up.”

  It’s about time. A man and a bottle of Glenfiddich arrive at our table. He leaves two frosted shot glasses. We keep the booze and send the man away.

  Jack pours and doesn’t put the cap back on. I know trouble when I see it.

  “To Scotch, cigars, and beautiful women,” he toasts. “Salud!”

  “Salud.”

  I need this, I need this. Don’t think, just drink.

  “Heads up!”

  A Frisbee whips through the air and slams into my forehead.

  “Argh, I said wait a minute.”

  “Oops.”

  “Crazy American.”

  Truth is, I needed a hit in the head. Proof I don’t need any more to drink. Eighty proof.

  “I take zero reps–responsibility.” Jack jogs over to me slowly, examining the mark his wild throw made on my skull. He picks up the weapon, one of a million black Frisbees lying around, made to look like record albums. Stuck in the middle where the band art would be is a sticker illustrated with caricatures of the bride and groom.

  “Qué … what even time is it?” I groan.

  Steady now. Impossible to tell whether minutes or hours have passed. Only thing I know is I’m loaded. We both are.

  “Fuck, I forgot it’s my wedding for a minute. Hand me that ice bucket, would you?”

  I oblige. He holds it up in front of him, fixing his hair in the reflection.

  “Where’s Lia?” I wonder out loud.

  “How should I know? I been out here with you the whole time. Come on, let’s go.”

  Like a couple of unconvincing thugs, we swagger around the corner toward the party. Jack looks over at me, egging me on.

  “You gonna make your move, big guy?”

  “You know, she’s…” I do feel more open, now that I think about it. “Lia’s the kind of girl you’d walk through bullets to get to. Brings out the selfish bastard in me, disguised as a gentleman.”

  “Aw, here it comes. I hit you in the head and now you’re Romeo,” he teases.

  “Caught myself imagining us walking through her hometown, or somewhere with a different climate,” I hear myself admit to him. “Cool air. Surf the upper west coast.”

  Only thing I’m missing is an invitatio
n.

  “Shi-it, you got to lock that down, man. The journey’s much more fun when you’re fucking a beautiful woman.”

  I can’t argue with that.

  He pulls a stick of gum from his pocket and hands me one. “I dunno about Lia, but my wife doesn’t like when I taste of cigar.”

  Grateful, I take it. The mint’s so strong it would numb my tongue if it weren’t already that way.

  “I owe you, buddy.”

  “Look, there’s Tate and Danny. Quick, lemme get on your shoulders, it’ll be funny. Where’s that Frisbee?

  CHAPTER 6

  Lia

  My heels click satisfyingly on the sleek marble that welcomes me into the plush ladies’ room, where everything is taupe and ivory. I don’t even have to go. Diego is nowhere to be seen and I’ve been avoiding checking my phone, but I plop my bag on the counter and unzip it. Two messages float on the screen. One’s from Diego, sent half an hour ago; just says hi. The second is from an unknown number.

  Leave me alone, Carter, I whisper to myself, and I put the phone away before I can read anything else.

  “Who’s there?”

  Startled, I see Mitsuko’s heart-shaped face pop out of the last stall warily, but she brightens seeing me. I watch her size me up with glassy eyes, her round cheeks flushed.

  “Sorry, I thought I was alone. Uh, I’m Lia.”

  She didn’t exactly invite me. It’s weird introducing yourself to a bride at her wedding.

  “I know who you are.”

  Small, sharp eye teeth dip below her top lip. Her velvety red lipstick is smudged, but on her it’s coquettish, a carefully staged Versace ad. Women buy sixty-dollar lip pencils to have a voluptuous kisser like hers.

  Mitsuko giggles. Even plastered, she looks sleek as a shiny new Jaguar, with her glossy black hair and nails. Her cat eyes are playful but sharp below flawless, arched brows. One arm is stretched back over her shoulder, pulling at something. Stunning and equally fierce.

  “Are you all right?” I dare to ask.

  Grinning irresistibly, she tilts her head and beckons me.

  “You’re here with Diego, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  I’m surprised she knows me.

  “Will you come here and help me? I can’t get the clasp done.”