[et_pb_section fullwidth=”on”][et_pb_fullwidth_header admin_label=”Fullwidth Header” title=”The Art of my Life” subhead=”Chapter 1 Preview” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”center” \/][\/et_pb_section][et_pb_section][et_pb_row][et_pb_column type=”4_4″][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” background_layout=”light” text_orientation=”left”]<\/p>\n
Chapter 1<\/span><\/p>\n Cal walked through the tinted glass jail doors into the loamy scent of Bermuda grass, pine bark, and freedom. The surf shorts and T-shirt he\u2019d worn three months ago when the cop clamped metal on his wrists hung loosely, misshapen, like a life that no longer fit.<\/span><\/p>\n He scanned the weather-bleached asphalt, the smattering of cars roasting in the Daytona Beach summer. Sun glinted off the windshield of a silver Honda\u2014Aly\u2019s?\u2014blinding his eyes, yanking her last words to him into the whiteness.\u00a0<\/span>I love you, John Calvin Koomer.<\/em>\u00a0Usually he blocked out Aly\u2019s admission, but in jail the video had played over and over\u2014the certainty in her eyes, the tremor in her voice.<\/span><\/p>\n He squinted at the Honda. Sweat slicked his armpits and tickled the side of his face.<\/span><\/p>\n Maybe he should have slept with Aly when she offered. He shook his head, dissolving the idea. No. It didn\u2019t matter that protecting her from another guy taking what he wanted had earned him two and a half years of looking at the back of her head. It had been the right thing to do.<\/span><\/p>\n He\u2019d smoked weed to forget her, crammed Evie into Aly\u2019s place inside him, but going to jail had ripped away everything but the truth.<\/span><\/p>\n He loved Aly. Always had. Always would.<\/span><\/p>\n And it was time to do something about it.<\/span><\/p>\n The rumble of an engine pulling into the lot jerked his head around. His mother\u2019s minivan puttered toward him, mowing down the stubble of his hope.<\/span><\/p>\n He glanced back at the Honda. No college graduation tassel dangled from the mirror. No silhouette of the Virgin Mary had rusted into the right front bumper.<\/span><\/p>\n The car was empty. Like he felt inside.<\/span><\/p>\n Mom angled into a parking space, her maneuvering as precise as everything she did.<\/span><\/p>\n His flip flops scraped the asphalt as he shuffled toward her. As his hand closed around the chrome door handle, heat branded his palm. He climbed into the stream of the air conditioning blowing from the dash, and the door clunked shut behind him.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Mom reached for him, and his breath stuttered.<\/span><\/p>\n When was the last time they\u2019d touched?<\/span><\/p>\n She wrapped awkward arms around him. \u201cI\u2014I\u2019ve wanted to hug you ever since the first day I visited you at jail.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n His hand lit on the fabric stretched across her dancer\u2019s back. He sucked in gulps of human affection and the talcum scent of childhood while his mind tried to solve the puzzle of his mother. He coughed, searched for words to fill the silence, and found none. For a heartbeat he was ten with tears pricking the backs of his eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n She released him.<\/span><\/p>\n Relief, then the desire to cling to her, flushed through him making him feel lightheaded.<\/span><\/p>\n His mother\u2019slim fingers shifted the car into reverse. Her dark hair, slicked back from her face in her customary ballerina bun, exposed the scar running from her temple into her hairline. It whitened now, the only hint of emotion on her face.<\/span><\/p>\n According to Grandpa Leaf, Mom had been dropped on her head as a child\u2014causing her to rebel into conservatism from her hippie upbringing. Leaf always cackled after he told the story.<\/span><\/p>\n Why couldn\u2019t Henna\u2014his lumpy grandma\u2014have picked him up? He pictured her, in one of her bird of paradise muumuus, beaming at him\u2014someone he didn\u2019t have to measure up for.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYour grandmother is giving you her boat.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n His jaw dropped. Mom might as well have said Cape Canaveral would launch another\u00a0<\/span>Discovery<\/em>\u00a0with Henna as pilot. The forty-one foot Catalina he\u2019d sailed a thousand times materialized in his mind.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYour father and I thought it might give you a fresh start. You could run charters like you and Fish used to talk about when you were kids.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n That was before Fish fell in love with politics in tenth grade. He could almost see Fish\u2019s perennially sunburned face. God, it had been a long three months without Fish.<\/span><\/p>\n His mind swerved back to Henna, the dots connecting. Henna held herself responsible for his going to jail. He\u2019d tell her she didn\u2019t owe him anything. But he knew she\u2019d make him keep the\u00a0<\/span>Escape<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n So what if he\u2019d been caught with Henna and Leaf\u2019s weed? He\u2019d rather do the time in the Volusia County Correctional Center than watch his grandparents go to jail. They were more like leftover flower children than drug dealers. And he loved them. His favorite childhood daydream had been imagining Mom sitting him down and saying, all serious, that she was sorry, but Henna and Leaf were his true parents. He\u2019d sniffle, plow a hug into Henna\u2019s soft middle, then race free and wild into the rest of his boyhood\u2014the way he was meant to be raised.<\/span><\/p>\n As they passed the New Smyrna Beach City Limits sign, Mom glanced at him. \u201cI don\u2019t have to tell you that whatever you do in this town sticks to you for the rest of your life. Promise me you\u2019ll never smoke pot again. Salvage what\u2019s left of your reputation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He\u2019d always been\u00a0<\/span>The Scream<\/em>\u00a0to Mom\u2019s\u00a0<\/span>American Gothic<\/em>. \u201c<\/span>Your<\/em>\u00a0reputation. I don\u2019t care about mine.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHow can you go to jail, have to report a record every time you apply for a job\u2014\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLeave it, Mom.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIs pot why you never got through college?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI never got through college because I hated everything but art classes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cMaybe you\u2019re self-medicating for ADHD\u2014\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI can paint a canvas for six hours straight.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOr bi-polar. You\u2019ve always been mercurial.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYeah, I get it from you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cFunny.\u201d She didn\u2019t crack a smile as she wheeled the van into a marina parking space.<\/span><\/p>\n He could sure use a good smoke about now. Maybe it\u00a0<\/span>was<\/em>\u00a0time to quit weed. But it wouldn\u2019t be because his mother extracted a promise. It was his own damn life.<\/span><\/p>\n Mom killed the engine.<\/span><\/p>\n The car popped and crackled in the silence.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cCal.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He gripped the armrest, poised to escape.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe want to give you a shot at making something of your life.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n His failures throbbed in the car, the ones she\u2019d spoken and the one\u2019s left unsaid\u2014his part-time job at Stoney\u2019s Ink Slab that fell short of Mom\u2019s idea of a career, his want of religion. Did the list ever end?<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe moved your stuff from Henna\u2019s place to the boat. She kept your studio set up, so you can still paint there whenever you want.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He heard the\u00a0<\/span>but<\/em>\u00a0in her tone, the word that always followed her praise.<\/span><\/p>\n She dug the boat keys out of her purse and handed them to him. \u201cYour father and I are on the title for now because you need us to cosign for a startup loan. But if you default, you\u2019ll have to sell the boat to pay off the loan.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The whiskey shot that he was twenty-five and couldn\u2019t sign for his own loan burned all the way down. \u201cFair enough.\u201d He swallowed. \u201cHow much is the loan?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe figured forty thousand would cover repairs and get your business off the ground.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n His head knocked against the headrest. He\u2019d 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\u2014mammoth. Was it a last ditch effort to shove him into the sausage casing of society? Well, maybe he was willing this time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI drew up a business plan\u2014not 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.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He sucked in a breath. \u201cAly?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWho else would we go to? Aly\u2019s practically family. She\u2019s a loan officer\u2014\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He wrenched the door open. \u201cRight.\u201d He stepped out and turned back to face Mom. \u201cThanks for the lift. The offer of the loan.\u201d He stared at her, gratitude and shame stopping up his words, dampening his eyes. \u201cI\u2019ll think about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n She opened her mouth to argue.<\/span><\/p>\n He held up a hand. \u201cI said I\u2019ll think about it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Her brows arched into triangles and her lips pressed into a flat line, but she turned the key in the ignition.<\/span><\/p>\n The minivan eased out of the parking space, his mother sitting ramrod straight.<\/span><\/p>\n He released the air crowding his chest.<\/span><\/p>\n 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.<\/span><\/p>\n 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.<\/span><\/p>\n Selling his work, someday seeing his face on the cover of\u00a0<\/span>People<\/em>\u00a0magazine throbbed in his gut. But it was time to kill that dream. He\u2019d always paint, but Aly needed a guy who owned yard tools, tires worth rotating; who carried AAA, Visa, and voter\u2019s registration cards. His stinking driver\u2019s license wouldn\u2019t even be back in his wallet for another three months.<\/span><\/p>\n If he worked the Plan B his family had dealt him and succeeded at running a charter sailing business, he\u2019d gain a shot at Aly.<\/span><\/p>\n The only shot he\u2019d ever get.<\/span><\/p>\n His gaze caught on Evie\u2019s 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\u2014the epic mistake of his life\u2014for good this time. The picture wasn\u2019t pretty, but ninety days sober showed him he\u2019d been using her.<\/span><\/p>\n And now he\u2019d see her every day, living eight boats apart on the same dock. Well, he was ditching her this time, like he\u2019d told her six months ago. She\u2019d have to accept it.<\/span><\/p>\n A pelican settled on a piling in a flurry of clumsy feathers. Cal shook off thoughts of Evie and grinned. He\u2019d snag a hot dog from Leaf\u2019s stand on the beach\u2014just a hot dog, no weed\u2014grab his board, find Fish, and hit the waves. Then, he\u2019d head for Henna\u2019s to paint\u2014 enough to get it out of his system so he could focus on Plan B. Not painting had been punishing enough.<\/span><\/p>\n Frenzied barking erupted from Zeke\u2019s fishing boat two slips down. Van Gogh! Cal\u2019s chocolate lab-weimaraner, scrabbled across the gangplank, toenails dancing against the wood.<\/span><\/p>\n Joy bubbled up, something he hadn\u2019t felt since the arrest. His throat tightened.<\/span><\/p>\n Had Mom brought the dog down to the marina? But what was he doing on Zeke\u2019s boat?<\/span><\/p>\n Van Gogh planted his paws on Cal\u2019s chest, quivering, tail beating a frenzied rhythm against the light pole. A sandpaper tongue swiped Cal\u2019s chin.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m glad to see you, too, boy.\u201d Cal scratched soft doggy ears and inhaled canine and river water scent.<\/span><\/p>\n Van Gogh shimmied, wagging his butt along with his tail.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI should have known you\u2019d show up sooner or later.\u201d Fish\u2019s familiar voice.<\/span><\/p>\n Cal\u2019s head popped up and warmth pumped into his chest, washing away the time they\u2019d been apart. It didn\u2019t matter that Fish hadn\u2019t visited him in jail. Like the hospital, who liked the lockup anyhow? They\u2019d scarcely gone a day, much less months, without seeing each other since toddlerhood.<\/span><\/p>\n 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\u00a0<\/span>Zeke\u2019s Fishing Charters<\/em>\u00a0sign.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHey.\u201d Cal went for a hug.<\/span><\/p>\n Fish shoved a palm against Cal\u2019s shoulder. His face contorted. \u201cTake your friggin\u2019 dog and clear out. By the way, I dog-sat for VanGogh\u2019s sake, not yours.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Fish\u2019s harsh tone felt like stepping on a stingray out of nowhere. Cal\u2019s brow scrunched. \u201cWhoa. What\u2019s 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\u2019ll pay you for the dog food.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t know, do you? You don\u2019t freakin\u2019 know.\u201d Fish shook his head, incredulous.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat? What? Tell me.\u201d Cal\u2019s gaze flicked to\u00a0<\/span>Sean Fisher\u00a0<\/em>scrawled inside the white oval of Fish\u2019s work shirt.<\/span><\/p>\n The grease-stained material flapped against Fish\u2019s bony ribs in the wind.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou got me fired,\u201d Fish ground out.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cHow the he\u2014\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhat were you thinking ditching your weed in my locker? I didn\u2019t even know it was in there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A chill slid down Cal\u2019s spine. \u201cYou\u2019re kidding me. Nobody told me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt took me two weeks to get a job working for Zeke. I lost the apartment. I don\u2019t have family around to coddle me.\u201d Fish stared him down, stone cold, the same look Cal had watched Fish give his parents when they\u2019d told him they were moving to Peru.<\/span><\/p>\n Cal dropped back a step, remorse flushing through him. Throw another failure onto the pile. \u201cI\u2019m sorry, man. I had no idea.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s all you have to say?\u201d Disgust radiated from his eyes.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLook, it was what? A few joints? I was taking the rug rats to the beach, and I didn\u2019t want the stuff anywhere near them. My sister-in-law already thought I was scum. I\u2019m surprised she let me hang with the kids.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cOld Man Phillips called the cops. They hauled me off in the police car right out the front doors of Circle K.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cLook, I\u2019m sorry. It won\u2019t happen again. Ever.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cYou don\u2019t know what you\u2019re apologizing for.\u201d Fish flung his hands up in the air. \u201cPoof\u2014you killed my political career before it started. You killed my\u00a0<\/span>future<\/em>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Cal flinched inwardly. \u201cOne arrest would keep you from running for office?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n A muscle jumped in Fish\u2019s granite jaw.<\/span><\/p>\n There was no use arguing with Fish when he got like this. \u201cScrew you.\u201d Cal knocked a shoulder into Fish\u2019s arm, shoving him out of the way and stepped toward the\u00a0<\/span>Escape<\/em>. They\u2019d work it out later.<\/span><\/p>\n Fish grabbed Cal\u2019s bicep and spun him back. \u201cLooks like you already did.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The barb embedded into the soft flesh of Cal\u2019s gut. He jerked his arm out of Fish\u2019s hold.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cGet Van Gogh\u2019s crap off Zeke\u2019s boat while I\u2019m gone. We\u2019re done.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n For a millisecond Cal thought he saw hurt under Fish\u2019s anger.<\/span><\/p>\n Fish strode down the pier.<\/span><\/p>\n Done? Fire coral and kelp, anger and grief, wound around each other inside. \u201cWhy not stay and watch. Aren\u2019t you afraid the ex-con will clean you out?\u201d Cal shouted at his back.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cGet your lousy carcass out of my life. It\u2019ll be worth whatever you take.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n The comment stabbed deeper than\u00a0<\/span>we\u2019re done<\/em>. Fish knew he wasn\u2019t a thief.<\/span><\/p>\n Van Gogh nuzzled his hand, and Cal squatted to the dog\u2019s eye level.<\/span><\/p>\n Van Gogh stared placidly into his eyes, fogging his face with doggy breath. He slurped Cal\u2019s cheek.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThanks, buddy.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Cal crossed the gangplank onto the mammoth fishing boat\u00a0<\/span>Zeke\u2019s Ambition<\/em>. The cruiser must stretch fifty feet. He wrinkled his nose at the fish smell clinging to the bare wooden planks flecked with old paint.<\/span><\/p>\n He opened the door, and Van Gogh burst into the cabin.<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWhere\u2019s Fish\u2019s bunk, buddy?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n