Strega (Strega Series) (5 page)

There was nothing unlikeable about Shaun. Still, when I was with him, something held me back. It was the same thing that always held me back, I was sure. The emptiness, the disconnection, the longing for something more. I tried to push through it, take the risk with Shaun. I knew he was a good guy, but still I just couldn't let go. There were only a few people in my life that I turned to, and other than Rena, I'd lost most of them. I just couldn't bring myself to open up to anybody else. Not yet.

"Don't hold your breath for Vince, Jay. He's not an option. He blew you off, totally left you hanging. You don't even know where he is. Shaun is real. He is here now. And he's the whole deal—responsible, mature, smart, and those arms." She rolled her eyes, swept away by her own fantasy. When she finally reeled herself back in, she continued her rant. "If you keep shutting him out, he's not going to stick around. I'm sure there are plenty of other girls waiting in line for him."

She was right. I was still hung up on Vince. I knew it was ridiculous. He was practically a stranger to me. I met him once and never saw him again, and he was preventing me from finding happiness with Shaun or anyone else. But no matter how hard I tried to push thoughts of him from my mind, I just couldn't forget him.

I met Vince in the spring. It was late March, and still freezing cold. Rena and I had gone downtown to Rao's for open mic night. Though Rena's voice was above average, her singing style and volume were more suited for a karaoke bar than a cozy, mood-lit coffee shop. But she sang anyway. After an entertaining rendition of her latest favorite hip-hop tune, we sat and chatted for a while, half-listening to other amateur performers as they came and went. And then those haunting chords began.

When Vince first pulled up the torn leather stool to play, I never imagined that months later he would have such power over me. Next to the polished faces of the high school crew team captains at a nearby table, Vince was rugged and raw. His face was masked by a scruffy beard. His large, coarse hands were broken in from something far more laborious than playing guitar. His fingers, seemingly too large for the delicate strings, effortlessly strummed them as his pained voice uttered the first somber lines of a song that reached out and pulled me in. His strong, solid body hid unassumingly beneath an old t-shirt and jeans, and his feet rested firmly upon the floor in dark leather boots as he leaned over his guitar. He was beautiful.

As he came to the powerful chorus, his modesty gave way to a passion that seemed to sweep him into another world. His head lifted as the momentum tore through his body, and he closed his eyes as he bellowed the words. As the sound reached my ears, my body erupted in chills.

I didn't realize until the song ended that Rena had stopped talking and was staring at me suspiciously.

"See something you like?" she asked. I could see the wheels in her head turning. Before she could lure him to our table or do something equally as embarrassing, I shot up from my chair and made my way to the bathroom. My hands shook uncontrollably as I reached for the door handle. I was winded like I'd just run up ten flights of stairs. I washed my hands and found myself looking in the mirror, fussing over my hair and checking my shirt for crumbs or coffee spills. No one had ever made me fret like this.

I clung to the security of the bathroom, terrified to emerge. When I finally gathered myself and pushed the door open, I expected to find Rena talking to the man that left me so breathtakingly unsettled. She would force me into conversation with him and say something horrifying, leaving us staring awkwardly at each other until one of us found a graceful way to break away. My desire to run from this potential humiliation was so overpowering that I didn't notice the door to the men's room swing open. Before I could stop myself, I collided into a tall, unwavering body.

"Oh, I am so sorry," I yelped before retracting my hand from his arm. My eyes lifted to his face and my heart stopped. It was him. This man that had tied my stomach in knots.

"No, please. I wasn't paying attention," he said apologetically, letting his hand fall from my wrist. The moment he touched me, I felt a warm light surge through me. It was the strangest, most amazing feeling, and until it subsided I couldn't pull my gaze from him.

I smiled and excused myself, and walked away as quickly as I could. The hot, sweaty cloud of embarrassment swallowed me on my way back to my table, and I prayed that I wouldn't trip. I fixed my eyes on Rena, hoping she wouldn't notice him behind me. But then she opened her mouth and I froze.

"Vince?" Rena shouted past me, waving her hand at him.

"Wait, you know him?" I mumbled as I approached.

"Yes!" she said excitedly.

"I knew you looked familiar up there," she said to him as he caught up with me. "I didn't know you sing...and play guitar!"

I was terrified. Of all the things I feared Rena might do to embarrass me, this scenario wasn't even on my radar. And it was worse than anything I imagined. Her opportunities were endless.

"Vince and I are in the same English class," she said, leaning into me with her shoulder. "What are you doing here?"

"I actually work here, out back," he said. "I just got the gig a few weeks ago."

"And you're a musician?" Rena said. "What other hidden talents do you have?"

"I don't usually play for an audience," he said modestly. "One of the guys here saw my guitar in the back of my car and I've been on the hook since."

"Do you go to Merriam, too?" Vince asked, suddenly turning to me.

"No," I said regretfully. "Another year of high school."

"Really?" he said with surprise as he stared at me. "Well, then I've seen you somewhere else before. You look really familiar."

"I work at The Waterside. Maybe there?"

"Maybe," he said contemplatively. His gaze lingered on me. Nothing could have made me so uncomfortable or thrilled me more.

Vince sat down at our table, and within minutes Rena excused herself. She found friends across the room to chat with and never came back. Though her not-so-subtle methods often annoyed me, this time was different. Vince captivated me the entire night. We could have made it to sunrise without running out of things to talk about. We loved the same bands. Wanted to travel the world and explore new places. I picked his brain about astronomy and meteorology—he was majoring in earth science. He appreciated my arsenal of random historical facts. We shared our experiences and confessed our dreams and our itch for more. My desire to get into UC Berkeley. His desire to get his pilot's license. He was just two years older than me, but he had a maturity beyond his years. When he spoke, I listened to every word and clung to it as if it was the last one I'd ever hear him speak.

When Rao's finally closed, we reluctantly bundled up in our coats and drifted outside together, neither of us ready to say goodbye. Rena kept her distance, continuing her conversation with friends until Vince and I said goodbye.

He stood before me, tall, magnificent, and breathtakingly gorgeous. I'd been talking with him all night, and somehow I managed to find my composure in his presence. But as his body hovered so close to mine, I was coming undone. He looked into my eyes and my legs began to shake. He brushed my hair away from my face, and my entire body hummed as he leaned in and whispered into my ear.

"I really like you, Jay," he said, his sultry voice and his musky skin intoxicating me. "I've never met anyone like you before."

His warm breath pounded against my neck until his lips retreated. He looked into my eyes again, his face so close to mine, and as each desirous breath escaped his lips, my own parted in anticipation.

We had only just met, but I felt as if I'd known him for a lifetime. When he touched me, a warm light surged through me again and I forgot all about the night's icy chill. I longed to feel his hands against my neck, pulling me close until his lips touched mine. I wanted to melt into his deepening kiss and fall into the headlong spiral that had already begun to pull me in. But instead we whispered goodnight.

Vince took my hand and kissed it with the chivalry of an old world gentleman. I watched him walk away, still lost in my own thoughts. That night I couldn't sleep. Until I saw him again, I could think of nothing else.

The next day, my shift couldn't end fast enough. Vince and I had planned to meet at The Waterside as soon as I got out. The moment the old clock on the wall struck two, I ran out back to change out of my uniform and wash up before he arrived. My co-workers teased me, mimicking my flightiness that day, and my sudden preoccupation with this beautiful boy who had come into my life so unexpectedly. Time passed slowly as I waited by the window, staring out onto the street looking for Vince. Soon the jokes subsided and my excitement waned. In its place rose utter devastation. I waited for two hours by that window. Vince never came.

For weeks, I held onto hope that I would see him again. Each time I passed Rao's, I looked into the window but I never saw him. Rena said he hadn't shown up to class after that night. She asked her professor if Vince was sick, but he was just as surprised by Vince's absence as she was. Especially since the spring semester was almost over. The weeks that followed were excruciating for me, and Rena knew it. She finally stopped into Rao's to ask Vince's co-workers what they knew, but he hadn't shown up for his shifts in weeks. His phone was disconnected, and his apartment was vacant. When I learned this, my heart dropped. With no explanation, Vince was gone.

Rena stared at me with impatience, waiting for my response to her rant. Forget Vince. Keep Shaun. Broken record.

"Please, Rena. I can't handle this right now," I finally said. The building tension and compounding exhaustion finally pushed me over the edge. Tears flooded my eyes. Rena stopped cold and stared at me, searching my face for clues, knowing that it was more than just the dream that troubled me.

"Somebody followed me home last night," I finally said. "For real."

"What?" she barked, jumping from the sofa in shock. "Why didn't you tell me, Jay!"

"I tried, but you haven't stopped yelling at me since you got home!"

"I'm not yelling at you, Jay." She deflated with a deep exhale. "I'm just worried about you."

"I know."

I saw it in her face. She was thinking the same thing I was. Gram's killer was still out there.
What if he followed me home?
Detective Laine still had no leads. It could have been anybody.

Rena sat in silence as I explained the whole terrible experience. It was just like the dream, other than the fact that somehow I barely escaped him.

"I'm so sorry, Jay. That's why you texted me last night..." she said knowingly. "I wish you just called instead. I would've come straight here."

"I didn't want to wake you after the day you had with Max..."

"Oh, you should have," she said as she wrapped her arms around me tightly. "This is all my fault. If you weren't stuck working my shift, it never would've happened."

"It's my own fault. I shouldn't have walked home. I could've asked Paul or Ricky to drive me home, or called a cab."

She pulled me up off the sofa and we walked together into the kitchen.

"You need a bodyguard and I'm hiring myself."

I rested my head against hers and wished she could truly protect me.

The night Gram died, she was painting in the sunroom. When I found her, she was covered in a rainbow of paint smudges from her fingertips to her elbows. And blood. So much blood.

She was an artist. For years, the constant demand for her beautiful renderings of the charming local landscape kept her busy. She tried to retire, to slow the pace a bit, and only accepted a few special requests. But I swore she was busier after this pseudo-retirement than she ever was before. She was always running off to go sailing, swimming, skiing, or just to get together for coffee with friends. She belonged to every organization in Newburyport. We couldn't go anywhere in town without running into someone she knew.

When she was home, she was always in the sunroom, lost in her own world of creativity. She'd been in there all day working on her most recent painting, which was almost finished. To anyone else, it appeared complete. A vast landscape of rolling green hills illuminated by sunlight. Lakes, vineyards, towering trees, and all the beauties of nature. Within it, one old oak tree stood out from the rest. It was rooted deeply in the rich earth and stretched tall toward the sun.

"Trees are magical," Gram used to say. "They hover between two worlds, keeping the secrets of the dark earth below and the light of the heavens above."

This painting was inspired by a dream, she told me. A dream that came to her often. One of peace and strength. It was her heaven, she used to say. A place of peace, freedom, and renewal. There was one thing still missing from the painting. Something that would make it complete. She never told me what it was, and she died before she finished it.

"Gram!" I yelled, floating into the house on a cloud. I'd just come home from a date with Shaun. He took me out for a romantic dinner on the water. We had only been seeing each other for a couple weeks, but he was so charming, and he left me at the front door with a good night kiss that made me giddy. In the first blush of this new relationship, I didn't consider whether these feelings would endure. I couldn't wait for Gram to throw on some tea and chat all about it. When she didn't answer, I called for her again.