Chapter 29
Beach Blanket Maya
Regrettably by no circumstances she could really control Zoe begrudgingly was trapped at this party. When she was pretty much immersed in loneliness while on Westdrive she thought she would be the party type, but the more parties she attends, the less sure of that presumption she becomes. She can only hope that Zig can come and rescue this day from being a disappointment of a surreal type given the awkward day-dream about the deceased and Maya's questionable behavior. Zoe knew she had to stay sober, it didn't stop her from having one drink but at the rate Maya is going with shots with the random guys it seems like Zoe won't be drinking much and in turn is poised to become her night shift babysitter.
The guys there reminded her of the guys at the ravine parties, drunk, hitting on girls who wouldn't give them the time of day unless they were severely intoxicated. The guys she doesn't hang out with, Zig's buddies. In fact, she had to explain she wasn't single to at least three guys and she had only been at the party for twenty minutes. One of the guys won't leave, and will occasionally make some awkward attempts at a conversation but Zoe finds him distracting, "If he's your boyfriend, why isn't he here?" He cooed in her hear, "He doesn't have to know you know, I can -"
"Must you?" Zoe asked cutting him off, "I'm just here with my friend and I have to watch so she doesn't do anything stupid."
"But what about in the meantime?" He asked flirting still, pretty obviously.
"Just fuck off. If I was looking you wouldn't be my type." He jumped off the dune making her jump a bit, managing to get some sand onto her feet. She backed away making a face as she saw the mess, "Now look what you did?"
"Suit yourself. You don't have to be such a bitch about it." He muttered as he walked away, she felt a sense of relief with him gone. Through the brush though a familiar face entered the party - Zig. She remained standing as she just watched him with a smile on her face, "Babe you're here."
"I'm here, where's Maya?"
Zoe shrugged, "I have no idea, she's getting drunk."
"Shouldn't you be getting drunk?"
The brunette shrugged, "Someone has to be the responsible one, little did I know that I would be the one."
Zig managed to laugh a bit, "You're responsible, you were able to handle a party with twenty or so heads weren't you?"
"That was different, it was controlled, a controlled environment . . I'm not over reacting am I?"
"I just never thought I'd see the starlet not at the center of attention."
She looked up at him, massaging his hand with a sheepish grin, as she looked up at him with a serious expression, "You know I'm not a starlet anymore." He wrapped his other hand around her pulling her close as he observed the bikini clad girls and the guys sitting by the fire. Some of the guys had guitars and were impressing girls with their music, "least of all, not anymore. I'm just . . regular."
"You sound a little sad."
She shook her head, "I'm not though, in fact I'm relieved. I don't have maturity beyond my age, I have . . normal worries."
"I'm proud of you." Zig beamed, "You seem to have things all figured out, I wish I could be more like you."
"What're you talking about? You're in tutoring you're getting on the right track, responsible."
"Yeah, I know." He expressed modestly as he noticed Maya talking to a sketchy looking guy. It was pretty obvious and explicit in Zoe's text that she was wrought with worries about Maya. Zig knew about the dream, but Zig knows that Zoe believes in crazy superstitions due to her years in television and performance.
About an hour ago, Zoe kind of pulled Maya aside and asked her to slow down on the drinking not to be critical but to be helpful and Maya kind of lashed out at her. For lack of better terms she threw the act of kindness in her face claiming she's fine but Zoe wasn't concerned and that was at least an hour ago, and a few drinks more. Zoe's real focus despite her boyfriend being here is about making sure Maya doesn't do anything stupid without directly getting into a confrontation with a very intoxicated Maya, "Maybe you should go and . . fix things."
"I'm not the best person to do that."
"And what do you mean by that?" Zoe asked curiously, obviously she was a little defensive. She wasn't blind to the history between Maya and Zig, at first he wasn't exactly shy about how things used to be, and how he used to feel about her. However, Zig was on the same wavelength about Zoe, "Last time I got involved, she lashes. I guess I should've warn you - she's a mean drunk."
"You should have." Zoe sighed shaking her head, nudging him with a laugh followed by a thoughtful pause. "I don't understand her, we," She paused, "It's like she's getting back at me for all this stupid shit that happened when she and I were mortal enemies and while I can't say I blame her . . . it's just I'm actually trying. I think Tris is right I guess, he kind of told me about this guy named Cam and during the first dance of the year I saw a kid in the hall named Cam."
"That is impossible."
"I know that now . . "
"He died at least a year ago."
"She isn't at peace." Zoe's voice managed to crack, she inhaled the ocean air and bit her lip before turning to Zig, "Did you know about that?"
Zig shook his head, "I tried with her, but - when she doesn't want to listen, there's no making her. She's thick-headed." He ran his fingers through his dark hair shrugging his shoulders, "It's not really our business, there just comes a time where she's not listening. Like she'll hear what you have to say about it, but she doesn't change, or essentially adapt. She copes this way. Nothing we say is going to change her mind, so - let her make her mistakes because to her she doesn't have to remember. She doesn't have to deal."
"What're you saying we just leave her?"
"Isn't that what she wants?"
Zoe slowly turned her head to get a last look at Maya, the guy put his arm on her leg and she giggled scooting closer, "I have a really bad feeling about that guy."
"Him?" Zig asked, looking sympathetically at Zoe, "You know, maybe we're coddling her and this is why we should touch and go and let her make her own mistakes. I'm not her boyfriend and I never really was and she doesn't want me to be here for her and I get that."
"So we're just going to leave her be?"
"Of course, if this guy gets handsy we'll do what we gotta do, but let's be real and be honest with ourselves people are expendable to her." Zig replied stone cold, shrugging his shoulder, shaking his head with an exhale, "She gets in these messes, she gets herself into these messes but she doesn't want to hear anyone out."
Zoe thought back to earlier that day when Zoe told her about her dream, the one about the boy named Cam who wanted her to save Maya because he knew she was in some sort of dangerous situation, troubled she replied, "Will you tell me about Cam?"
He groaned shrugging his shoulders, "I don't want to talk about it."
"Why?" She asked, "I just I don't understand." After a pause she looked at Zig pleadingly, grasping both of his hands, "You know everything there is to know about me. I tell you everything, everything! There is to know about me. I feel like I need to know about this too."
"Fine." He managed to answer as he tried to recall it all. It had been a year but it felt like an eternity, he feels like a different person, separated from the angry, jealous and childish boy he exhibited himself to be when he was a musician, in a band with a girlfriend and yet he was dissatisfied. When he loved Maya, when he vehemently hated Cam for standing in the way and yet, in retrospect he should've let her go then and he should've never regretfully held out hope for her. "So I guess we have to start at the beginning, well as close to that as I could. I was dating Tori but I wasn't feeling it. We didn't have enough in common, she liked to watch the teen dramas, she was this fashionista and I just never felt like I fit with her. I didn't think I deserved her either because and this was before because I wouldn't be able to give her things she wanted. I couldn't take her out to dinner because I couldn't afford to. It held me back with a lot of insecurities and things. Sometimes Tori would end up freezing me out because I was too ashamed to tell her the ugly truth, that the low point was when she had her heart set you know on this four month anniversary dinner and I made it a dine and dash. Unfortunately, I knew the waitress and I had to pay her back. Maya though, she used to help me get out of trouble because lord knows I was - I was always in trouble. I couldn't be what Tori wanted and Maya didn't care because she liked the person I was, at least I thought she did. Sometimes I think we as people get caught up in the who we are, what we think and how we think things happened but I thought she did these things because she still possibly had feelings."
"Then what?" Zoe asked as Zig paused he decided to sit on the spare wooden logs and Zoe joined him.
"Maya started hanging out with this guy Cam, who played for the hockey team. Which meant he had some cache in the school, but he was our age, you know? Still a lowly freshman, but because he was technically on the team he was kind of important. He and Maya basically started dating and I think that's where I lost it. Maya sort of got into this pageant because Tori got her into it and she wanted to make her boyfriend happy but I was just thinking, if your boyfriend isn't happy with you - you shouldn't stand for that? Am I right?" Zoe nodded respectfully, "We kissed and it was mutual and it was probably the last real thing that ever happened between Maya and I. From that day onward I was kind of cruel to Cam and I said things I regret and for a while I blamed myself for his death and sometimes I still do."
"He died?" Zoe asked tearfully, shaking her head, "B-but I spoke to him? At least I thought so."
"What?" He asked, "When?"
"It was during the luau dance, I ran into the hall to be alone after Drew embarrassed me and this kid was in the hall and he made me feel better, about being the new girl in town and he told me things." Zoe closed her eyes, "I felt cold, he disappeared within seconds but - aside from it I can't say that it wasn't weird. And then the dream, we were here it was day light it was bright and hot and he held a hockey stick . . . and he told me to look after Maya. I'm not shrink though and I have my own issues and - quite frankly they have nothing to do with her."
"That's nuts. I guess if I could take back anything I ever said, it would be the shit I said to Cam."
"I said some pretty awful stuff to Maya, and I had no idea her boyfriend died."
"So what do we do?" Zig asked after a pause.
"Let's go." Zoe said, finally standing up, "Let's get Maya, take her home and then I decided we should go to California and meet my father."
"Really?" Zig asked smiling, "It'll be a nice change of scenery."
"Yes." Zoe replied nodding with relief that Zig is deciding to take this risky and somewhat scary and unnerving journey with her, "You will come, right?"
"Well, I didn't think you'd want me there." He replied bashfully tucking his arm uncomfortably by his ear.
"We could meet your dad?" She offers sympathetically walking toward him ansty running toward him draping her arms around his neck draping upon his shoulders remaining there.
"Zoe you're in my boat." He suggested, "I don't want to meet my dad." He scoffed, "As far as I'm concerned he's a coward, drunk and -" He sighed breathlessly, "Why would I want to know him? Fuck him!"
"Zig." Zoe sat up and stopped leaning on Zig, breaking from the embrace, "It could be cathartic to let go. It could help you move on and not be so angry when you think about how he left you and your mom. It'll give you like . . . closure."
"I guess, but I don't think anything he'll say no matter how good it would make him feel to say, I don't know if I could hear that."
"What do you mean, Zig?"
"You know, my mother had to make do. She raised me good, we weren't rollin' in the dough but what if he is? Or worse, what if he never wanted me, and I was this huge big mistake? What if he's not really my dad? What if he denies me? I can't hear the negative, but worse I couldn't believe the latter what he if he did want me? That in a perfect world it had to do with mom and dad and their personal stuff and I was just in the middle and an unintended casualty of their divorce. I just I don't know the circumstances."
"It just sounds like to me it could be good to clear that up, for better for worse." She offered with a shrug, she paused for a moment and looked up at him, "Cigarette?"
Zig dug into his pocket of his jeans, and passed her the box and then a lighter after digging into his pocket, she took one out and lit it, a smoke cloud followed, "I never thought that knowing would help."
"It's because you, care." Zoe exhaled, "If you didn't care, you wouldn't have had animosity about having an answer. You just, have an answer and if you didn't care you would be indifferent. And when you're indifferent you'd say fuck it and mean it. Fuck him, he aint worth shit, but he is. I want to know him, even if he hasn't been there my whole life and all," She smirks, "He just - there's just something I think he could teach me, something I could gain from learning about him because like it or not he is a part of me. I am a part of him that he just chooses to live away from."
"I want to go and get away, but wouldn't we be . . letting people down?" Zig asked seriously, calmer in demeanor he spoke slowly.
Zoe took a drag from her cigarette and thought for a moment, finally speaking heartfelt, "My whole life I ran away or hid from my problems. I kept myself inside of myself for too long and it's time I break out and do something for me. I didn't act for me, I acted for my mom to live comfortably and not have to have much real world problems. Being an actress meant you make a career out of lying. They often say that lying is more fun, I lived a lie. Meeting my dad would change me because for a long time I lived in the past of a life that never was meant to exist. I grew up on that set and now look at me, I'm not any of that anymore. I have a life, me Zoe Rivas has a fucking life. I think it could be good for me to face the truth."
"Of course it'd be." Zig soothed her by running his hands through her brown hair. Her head in his chest, Zig took the remaining cigarette from between her fingertips and took a drag, "I guess it's just the circumstances on why he left. It's a big question mark and, maybe you might be onto why, the shit about - you know. "
"I'm not a mind reader." She reached back for the cigarette, "I just," She bit her lip, "I have good instincts but I can't read your mind."
Zig paused for a moment, "I guess a bit of both. I hate him for leaving but on the inside it hurts."
"Why didn't you so say so, that means you have to meet him. At this point I think you'd regret it honestly."
"Like what do I have to lose? Nothing because he wasn't there all this time, but everything because I didn't try."
"Exactly." Zoe looked behind her and saw Maya still talking to that guy, he seemed happy and so did she. Perhaps it was just Zoe's protective instincts kicking in because she couldn't help but find the whole thing with the dead ex boyfriend something that would make Maya on that road of self-destruction. Zoe's been there, done that and bought the t-shirt when she went as far as to take drugs and then tell a guidance councilor her problems just get out of class and away from the people she came to know and dislike and yet somehow she found it in herself to make friends with others. Maya feels happiest now because she's the center of attention where at school she feels like a number. Single, female and she's attractive yet invisible at school only a sophomore and Maya already feels hopeless. Now she's tired of being known as the girl whose boyfriend passed away and she wants to avoid everyone that reminds her of the ordeal. This guy knew nothing of it and they were just having what looks to be normal conversation, she was smiling, they were having fun. "She's having fun. Maybe I'm just crazy."
"It's because you care about her." Zig replied, "You came to like her."
"I did but I probably always could have just been her friend instead of fighting her every step." Zoe sighed, "It's not easy for me to make friends with people."
"I don't even know we or I bother she doesn't listen to us."
"I don't want to talk about that." She remarked devoid of enthusiasm, "I'm just glad things are looking up."
"So am I." Zig replied, pulling Zoe toward him, face to face, "When do you want to leave?"
"Friday." Zoe replied seriously.
"Okay then, so it's settled Friday." Zig replied, "In two days."
"So we have to get packing, will you help me out tonight?"
Zig nodded, "You want to cut out now?"
"I'll go get Maya.", Zoe felt the need to remind Zig of the obvious. Problem is her car is here."
"Shit." Zig exclaimed, "Looks like you're going to have to drive. You okay with that?"
Zoe had to drive the two hours from Wasaga Beach back home, and while she thought it was going to be scary it wasn't as long as Zig's car remained in front of hers. Maya was passed out in the backseat and fortunately for them there wasn't a cop in sight. Zoe didn't even have her permit so she was running somewhat of a risk. Fortunately for her it wasn't as hard as she thought it'd be. She would watch when others drove and she was calm. Once they reached Maya's house, Zoe was smart to take the side door and was able to sneak Maya in her house with her keys and her car parked and then entered Zig's car. She took a look at Zig, "Thanks for doing this, I know this isn't exactly what you'd call fun but I didn't want to be that friend who gets her friends into trouble."
"It's fine, I just - you are too much." Zig beamed from the driver's seat, "You're perfect. How did I manage?"
"Shut up." She rolled her eyes unable to take the compliment, or perhaps she did but she buried it under her pounds of insecurities, "I guess we go to my place."
"I guess so." He answered revving up the engine and driving the short distance to Zoe's house, parking down the road to not disturb her parents. Zoe led Zig to where he normally climbs in through the ivy covered lattice and ladder in the garden over on the side of her house as she came in the front door. Zig knew what to do, he hid in the closet until she arrived in the bedroom. As the brunette walked in she noticed her mom sitting in the kitchen with a glass of wine slumped over the kitchen table looking blankly ahead. The house was immersed in silence and fortunately for Zoe's sake no sign of Curtis.
Finally in the kitchen, every step was painful her mom didn't bother to call her name, she knew who was home, this probably meant she was in trouble, "Mom, what is it?"
"I kicked him out." Alaina started to say, she grasped her bottle of wine and poured the rest in the cup, "Honey, I'm so sorry."
"He's not going to bother us anymore?"
"He did what I asked him to do, he got you a job." Alaina silently replied cooly, "And yes. We're free. He's not going to bother us anymore."
"Why did you kick him out though?" Zoe asked confusedly, somewhat angry and a bit mouthy, "Why was he even living here?" She paced the kitchen figuring out the words as she went along, "I sat by and all because I thought you had it under control. I thought he was going to just blackmail into sex or something which, yeah it's shitty but at least he wasn't here ruining things."
"Zoe do you mind not talking about it?"
"When are we going to talk about it Alaina?" Zoe muttered unsatisfied with her mom dodging bullets.
"I got rid of him for you, we sleep like babies again and we don't talk about this anymore. Kapeesh?"
"Was it because you thought we didn't have any options?"
"I thought you getting your job back or another to replace it would make you happy, Zoe. Happy? I pretty much but my life on the line,myself for you and yet you . . just you don't really seem to be appreciative of anything I ever did for you?"
"It's about all you did for me. Even that sounds a little insincere, mother. What about what I did? Let the guy fucking live in this house? You make me sick."
"Ungrateful bitch!" Alaina quickly in reaction, slapped her across the face. Zoe held her cheek taken back in horror she backed away slowly but her mom called out Zoe followed by a long pause between the two when Zoe finally agreed to stay.
"What did you do for me, mom? An insecure person. A person who had so much troubles because you kept me sheltered away from everyone. You let me play pretend in the Westdrive world, all that did was mess me up for life. Congratulations, of course you're happy when I paid your bills when I was young. Now look at me, washed up in a regular school and I don't have a clue mom how I'm doing it, but I am. I had to deal with the fucking backlash of being a former star. The embarrassment and the feeling I get when I walk down the halls but I get up everyday and I do it I put on a smile. Grateful? I was forced to act."
"You loved to act and you know it!" She scoffed, "You were a ham before I ever put you in front of a camera."
"My whole career has been about appearances. I didn't have a choice. I didn't complain because I thought it would be okay but it never got better. Keeping up appearances, keeping up with the trends, diets when I was six. Keeping me isolated from people, my own grandparents!"
"Zoe stop you know, I had a bad day today and I'd appreciate if you would just shut up for a minute and leave me be." Alaina replied annoyed.
"You don't even care do you?" Zoe asked shaking her head, giving up throwing her arms in the air, "Fine, I'll be up stairs while you sulk! You think I'm feeling bad for you, you all but said it was okay what he did you didn't handle it in fact you made it worse. Deal with that and admit what you did wrong." With that, she made her way up the steps leaving her mom alone with the wine. Alaina took the wine and took a bitter sip and set it back onto the table closing her eyes and lying her head back on the back of the chair in distress. The sound of Zoe slamming her door was just the icing on the cake for Alaina.
