Note: Being in a different setting can actually make it a lot easier to write. I can hear the waves crashing on the beach and the rain falling on the roof, and I'd be lying if I said I got this inspired writing at the cramped desk in my room. On the downside, the Internet is fickle here. I might not be able to reply to your reviews…not that I've been doing a good job about that. Um, my bad. But thanks for the feedback! It's much loved. :)
Chapter Thirteen:
Marlin
I wonder if this is what life would be like if Jack had never been born.
Long moonlit walks across the beach. Small smiles and pointless secrets shared. A cheerful greeting every time I enter the room. Celia could be doing the most ordinary thing, but as soon as we'd lock eyes, she'd give me a glance so intimate, I'd feel as if it wasn't me she was staring at, but my very soul. I wondered if she could see all the secrets that lurked there, why it was that she wasn't looking away.
The thing about it is that it doesn't seem real. It still seems too good to be true, that this angel could suddenly throw herself into my arms so readily, so trusting. "I need you," she keeps telling me, and some days, I trick myself into thinking that "need" and "love" are the same thing.
I love her. I need her. There can't be too much of a difference, can there?
"Have you ever wanted to do anything besides…this?" Celia asks, the final word tacked on awkwardly. She crosses her legs beneath her, and the royal blue of the ocean behind her heightens the blush in her cheeks. "Is there any place you'd rather be?"
"Huh. You mean, do I wish I didn't have to live with Vesta and work with plants all my life?" I shrug. "I guess. I mean, no one really plans on living with their big sister, right?" I draw a circle in the sand with my finger, letting it catch on the open cup of a shell. "I don't know. I worked in the city for a bit right out of college. Got a two-year degree; couldn't really stand learning much longer. I did some pretty meaningless work, got myself sick, and wound up here."
She squints at me. "But…did you want any of that?"
Did I? I lean back against the beach, sunlight blinding me, and figure that I'd never given it much thought to begin with. A famous actor, a rock star—hell, a lawyer—were all dreams that had seemed stupid and pointless, things I knew I could never achieve. It's easier not to dream at all, than to climb for something always out of reach.
"I wanted things to stop changing," I concede at last. "I wanted everything to stop being decided for me."
"And has it?"
I stare at her, and I could swear she hasn't aged a day even though I've seen her body swell with child, writhe in agony of birth, and glide about with weariness instead of youth. Somehow, her innocence strikes me as misleading, and something tugs at me, splitting my joy with skepticism. I answer her question with another: "Since when does life ever go the way we want it to?"
Since when, I want to know, did mine?
"Ah, you're back."
That's a good way of putting it, I guess; I haven't haunted the Blue Bar often enough lately, and to be honest, I haven't had to. With Celia suddenly hanging on my every word and action, there's no reason to mope and moan over a glass or two of Stone Oil. Things have changed a bit, strangely enough; I'm here to get away, like before, but this time from the serendipity in my life and not from the sorrow.
Muffy's sizing me up with those big green eyes, and as she whips me up my favorite without me asking, slides it my way. "So why are you here then, Tall Brooding and Handsome? You're the only whiner I haven't seen lately."
"I've been busy," I drawl, my hand tightening around the glass. It imprints on the cold icy exterior, sweating away the chill of the mist. "Celia and her baby and all. You were there. You know."
"That's right; you're a housewife now. Silly me, I forgot. But I can't blame you for choosing the thrill of diaper-changing over the high of a round of drinks." Her cherry-red lips curve into a sassy grin, and she quips, "Wait, let me guess: the dirty diapers pushed you to it. You're drinking away the stench of baby spit and one too many little mistakes."
"Ha. Funny." I take slow sips, for some reason in no hurry to let the alcohol corrupt my system. I've been thinking too much; I should want this escape; I shouldn't be drawing it out. I glance Muffy's way, and it strikes me that the Muffy I see following Celia around never quite resembles my confessor at the Blue Bar. She can mold into any situation, channel her optimism into any role: best friend, barmaid, gossip.
It occurs to me she could have been one hell of an actress.
"Basically, the tables have turned," I mutter, hoping she won't hear me as I muffle my words with drink. But she picks it up anyway; ears of a cat, this girl.
"On you or for you?"
"For me," I reply, then add, "…I think." She raises an eyebrow—one eerily symmetrical to the other—and lets a low hum free from her throat as she listens. "See, this is—I don't know how to say it. Celia's not worrying anymore. About him. About the past. She's looking at me, now, and it's like she never saw him to begin with."
I'm not sure why, but I think her smile has faded somewhat. "Looks can be deceiving," she hedges, and for the first time during our conversation, Muffy looks away at the other customers and asks if anyone needs a refill.
They don't.
"Maybe things just worked out in her," I shrug. "I dunno, it's just too…too easy." Like the kind of dream you try not to wake up from, because it's something only found in sleep. "Do you think maybe she's just gotten stronger? About the death, I mean. That could be it."
Neither of us are really convinced by that; Muffy gives me a look so incredulous I'm beginning to see her more as a smirking teacher than an actress. "How stupid are you, anyway? Don't you know two-plus-two equals four?"
Celia plus Jack equals happiness. Celia minus Jack equals sorrow. Celia minus Jack plus Marlin equals x. What is x supposed to be, anyway? Joy, sorrow? Neither? On who have the tables turned exactly?
Muffy knows. God, I'd swear she knows, just by the way she's averting those mascara-shrouded eyes from me and asking Kassey in a high voice whether or not he needs another drink. "Muffy, what's going on here?" I demand, a growl creeping into my request. "What the hell is going on?"
She whips her head of blonde curls towards me, and—I swear to God—she's pitying me with those wide eyes. "Marlin, you love Celia, right?" Muffy whispers.
"Yeah." Idiot that I am. "Yeah, I do."
The barmaid leans across the counter, and cupping her hand beneath my cheek, asks, "But is that enough, Marlin? Is that enough?" To my disbelief, she's practically crying, but somehow she's managed to keep the tears to herself. "Marlin, just be careful. Don't need her more than she needs you, okay?"
It's an answer, yet I'd swear I haven't learned anything at all.
Vesta had called it a waste of money, but plant breeding had always peaked my interest. There's something strangely appealing about knowing exactly what something is destined to be, and then skewing it to become a creation no one else could have dreamed of. Tomatoes bred with carrots. Apples bred with oranges. Potatoes bred with whatever those concoctions were. There was no money in it, Vesta reminded me over and over; no one wanted to buy a fruit nobody recognized.
Still. When my sister wasn't looking, a small plot of land was taken aside for strange absurdities to grow: twisting and turning on their vines to create something the world never needed, but marveled at.
Carrotoma. I open the fridge to see the strange little crop smiling at me, a cross between a carrot and a tomato, and I think it's still fresh. Fresh enough for a midnight snack, anyway.
"So those ugly things are yours, then?"
I jump; Good God, why on earth is Celia up this late tonight? She's wearing nothing but a nightgown, and it seems odd that I don't recognize this one, when I've seen all her others. It's yellow, wispy as a daffodil's petals, and shorter than the last; somehow, she's grown taller. There's something wrong with seeing her like this, in a gown Jack no doubt bought her, and I turn back to my carrotoma, saying simply, "Yeah."
"Vesta wouldn't touch one earlier," Celia beams, coming to my side. Her arm links in my own, and she continues, "She said it's a misfit plant, something that doesn't belong anywhere. I don't think I've ever seen one before."
"Carrotoma," I grunt. "A carrot-tomato bastard." She keeps staring at me expectantly, and with nothing more to say, I extend it towards her. "Want to try it?"
At the very least, it takes her arm away from my own. The very touch of her skin ignites me, clouds my senses with a potency stronger than any drug. The quiet crunch of the fruit in her mouth sounds in the quiet of the kitchen, and Celia wipes the juice from her mouth with her hand. "It's…unique."
"It's underappreciated."
With my guilty pleasure gone, I'm stuck with an empty fridge and a girl whose eyes possess more dark magic than any three of Macbeth's witches. She hands me the fruit's remains and lets her hand linger on my own, swallowed in my palm.
God, that nightgown of hers is way, way too short.
"Anything else I should know about you?" she teases. "Do you sneak out to cook when I'm not looking, or maybe jet-ski in your spare time?"
"I'm a guy with barely any secrets," I snort. Despite Celia's recent hobby of interrogating me to death, I find it hard to believe anyone doesn't know what I'm thinking when I'm thinking it. I'm open about my emotions. Open about everything. Bottle it up, and I can't function. It's a thousand times easier to scream, to vent, to drink away problems. Whoever said men can't show their feelings is an idiot. We can show them just fine. We just get called "temperamental bastards" when we do it.
"Any reason you're up in the ungodly hours of the night?" I ask instead. "Vesta's snoring didn't wake you up."
"No, but Cassie did," she retorts, smiling. "I had to rock her back to sleep, and now I can't seem to sleep myself. I came down for a drink of water."
"I came down for carrotoma. Which is now gone."
She blushes at that, and pulls out two glasses in offering. "Well, how about water, then?"
My stomach's grumbling, and I'm actually dying to raid the fridge for leftovers of some sort since my stash is gone. Water won't cut it.
"Why the hell not."
I force myself not to look at Celia as she bends over the sink; it's not right for me to see her like this, dressed like that. There's something so foreign about it, something so…private. I'm not the man who'd share late night snacks with Celia like this, seen her in that gown; that had been Jack.
Jack. Good God. I'm taking the place of Jack.
"Here you go," she beams, and I am frozen, eyes locked on the glass before me. Jack. Jack. I'm taking the place of Jack.
"I need to go out," I mumble, and I push the drink aside, standing up awkwardly. Her face wrinkles in confusion, and I force myself to ignore the sweet sound of her protest as I stomp out the door, half-dressed. The moonlight cascades across my bare chest, and I continue moving forward, away from the house and the girl I used to know inside it.
What's wrong with me?
I keep walking—more like running—and the grass threads between my toes, dirt clinging to my heel. I follow the river, and by some sadistic twist of fate, I'm at Harvest Goddess Spring, surrounded by brightly lit flowers burning like candles around my rival's grave. There's no snow blotting his name out from view now, and I can see it plain as day: Jack Harvest, loving husband, devoted father.
"Some damn father you were," I spit, kicking dirt at the perfectly washed surface of the grave. "Some man you were, getting yourself killed right when your wife needed you most. Bet you it's your fault she's like this—it's your fault she's changed! Who the hell is she now, Jack? And where the hell is the Celia I used to know? Is she dead, like you?"
I kick at it once more, blaming a man just as powerless as myself, and I wonder why I'm so enraged. I wonder whyMuffy's words infuriate me, why Vesta's caution stings, why Celia's sudden and unexplained affection is absolutely killing me inside.
What do I want? I want Celia, but not this Celia. I want to take Jack's place, but I don't want to be Jack. I want things to stop changing, but since when does what I want matter?
I stand there for a few hours more, until some quiet footsteps come behind me, and my angel leads me home. She leans against me, speaking words of worry and anxiety as the scent of her hair overwhelms me and her voice cracks with concern. I think about the years I'd spent dreaming about moments like this, moments where she'd reveal her love for me with these simple actions by my side, and realize that for once, I truly want to be alone.