The Pink Portrait, Ch. Two

Two

Posso prega di avere la vostra auto?” pleads Ales.

“No you may not,” I say for the umpteenth time. Every morning she asks if she could have my authentic purple 1960 Cadillac Coupe Deville convertible with the white interior and black leather bench seats that my great grandmother left me in her will and every morning I say no. Sometimes I even look for more artful ways of saying no.

“Potrei collegere il mio iPod?” she tries.

“Yes, you can connect your iPod,” then will you shut up? I want to add. I never had a problem with the fact that Carlyle—the name that one of my closest friends besides Ales gave it or him—radio doesn’t have so much as a cassette player, but the sad part is the lack of altogether decent music amongst the music that are considered hits. Thankfully, Ales is reasonably tech-savvy. At one point, the radio quit working altogether last year while I was away and she took him to school and fixed it. Not only that, she managed to connect an auxiliary into its circuitry for which her teacher gave her extra credit points. Eventually, Ales settles on “Careless Whisper” by Seether.

“Going for moodiness?” I ask.

“Ehi, non dire nulla di male su Seether!” she warns.

“Sweetie, Evanescence already did that with the release of ‘Call Me When You’re Sober’,” I remind her. I am too amused to hide my grin as she grumbles. I also know that if it wasn’t for the fact that I was driving, she would smack me.

Ash Lake Bar & Grill is as much a dock house as it is a restaurant. It is flat-roofed building with half of it being on land and the other half above the lake itself. Half the clientele come from their boats as well as from the nearby beach, the latter of which is not too busy considering the rainy weather, but that doesn’t stop some people. During this time of year, it is not unusual for a number of the customers to come in just swimwear.

I park my car and while Ales hurries into the building, I take my time, letting myself enjoy the rain which has resumed. I lift my face up to the sky and raise my arms outward with my palms facing the heavens. I spin. I feel free. The raindrops that roll off my glasses and into my eyes, plus the distant thunder only add to my sense of peace.

My moment is cut short when I bump into the door. I scoff and open it. I try not to let my chagrin get the better of me as I step in, letting the door close behind me. I find Ales at the counter and I take a seat next to her.

“Is your head okay, there, prancy?” she asks.

“Oh, shut up,” I grumble as I wipe off my glasses with a handkerchief that happens to be in my jacket pocket.

“You caught the attention of one of those girls at the booth closest to the door,” she says as she takes a sip of coffee.

“Oh, come on Ales, let me wallow in my humiliation alone,” I plead, taking off my glasses and putting my face in my hands.

“If you would stop being a whiny bambino maybe you could do one of two things: you can either laugh at yourself like man, or you can steal a glance behind you and see that this girl was not laughing at all. It’s the brunette in case you were wondering,” she adds as she takes another sip of coffee.

I lift my face from my hands and look Ales up and down. Not even bothering to put my glasses back on, I shoot the girl I assume she is speaking of a surreptitious glance. What starts out as a glance, quickly progresses into a stare.

The brunette is flawless. Her skin shows no hint of blemish of any kind and her slender, though not overly curvaceous, frame seems to spell out athleticism. The chocolatey locks of her hair hang in sleek curtains that slowly turn into curls as if she spent many long hours trying to straighten it out, but to no complete avail. One might say that her doe grayish brown eyes mirror the locks of her hair. Her nose is, well, perfect. It has that wonderfully defined look that makes me think that the bottom of it is almost, if not completely, level with the ground. And now I step beyond the world of “a simple glance” and into that of observing her like an artist. Before I look away, I take in what she’s wearing. She is wearing a grey plaid blouse that was unbuttoned, not far enough to overly make a spectacle of her cleavage, but right at the point where her chest is as clear as day. The sleeves are rolled up to her elbows.

As I look away, I see something else, something that has nothing to do with this brunette. One of the guys she was sitting with pulls out a flask. A certain amount of darkness creeps its way into my eyes. “Mi scusi, Ales, I have to take care of something.” She sees my face and understands. I am not to be reasoned with when my mood turns this dark.

Putting my glasses back on, I get up and stride silently over to the table. I stop behind the guy and speak up. “Decent coffee?”

Having not noticed my approach, the moron jumps. He turns around to face me. High cheekbones, built like an ox, and known to run like a gazelle, I recognize him as being one of the guys from the football team. I can’t remember which position though.

“Oh, yeah, thanks,” he says a little too hesitantly. “I’ll even leave you a tip.” He and his friends snicker.

I grin, though there is a fiery sneer behind my eyes. “I’m not a waiter; I’m just the guy that is going to let you know that the brunette in the red leather jacket and loose chignon sitting two tables away from this booth is an off-duty detective.”

The jock frowns as he steals a glance at the woman I speak of. The way he licks his lips, the detective might as well be a slice of cake. “Okay, what does that have to do with anything?”

“Do you know the penalties of underage drinking?” I inquire.

“What?”

“It’s a simple question.”

“I don’t know. Jail time?”

“Not necessarily, but you could have to spend the next thirty days relying on the bus to get to school.”

The jock scoffs. “Do you know who I am?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact I do,” I reply cheerily. His name is Nigel Payson. “You are the cretin who is going to leave before I let that deputy who you are clearly swooning a soupçon too much over that you are spiking a perfectly good cup of coffee with that off-silver flask that says ‘Reapers rule’ across the front in Sharpie that is as icy blue as my eyes.”

The jock looks at me like I was speck of mud stuck in his cleats. He rises out of his chair to his full height. Even as he stands at least a head taller than me, I don’t blink.

“You wouldn’t,” he hisses.

“Try me, you unappreciative customer,” I challenge as dryly as I can muster.

He steps a little closer, almost to the point that our clothes are practically touching. His slightly alcohol-stained breath feels like fire in my nostrils as he huffs and puffs. Then he smiles and claps his hand on my shoulder, hard. Squeezing it, he leans in close. “You know, Paintbrush, I am in a good mood, and you’re Ales Neri’s friend. You’re going to not going to get me in trouble for public assault today.”

Paintbrush. The one name that everybody knows me by. “You know it’s really too bad that you would be swooning over a cop,” I taunt in an equal whisper, “especially considering your girlfriend is not so much a bore to the eyes either.” I briefly lock eyes with the brunette. The shadow of a bashful smile sweeps across her face and to my utter disbelief, so does mine. Suddenly, Nigel grabs my cheeks in a death grip and forces my face toward him.

“My girlfriend,” he snaps. “You, don’t fucking look. Don’t fucking touch. Don’t fucking speak. To her.”

“Ah, okay,” I say. I frown, confused. “Wait; if she is your girlfriend, then there must be a certain level of trust, right? If you trust her then why treat her like she’s a piece of property? Does the fear of competition soil your football jersey when someone other than yourself offers a harmless compliment?” I think that is the final straw as his grip on my face is replaced with a fistful of my shirt in his hand.

“That’s it, you—” began Nigel but he was cut off.

“Do we have a problem here?” the detective seems to appear out of nowhere with her hands on her hips. I assume she is not in the mood to be using her curvaceous form and flawless skin as a weapon which I know she is known to do.

“No, we do not, hot cop,” replies Nigel as he lets go of my shirt, smoothing it down with surprising delicacy.

Oh, crap, I say to myself. This guy has chosen the wrong cop to flirt with.

She smiles. Then she grabs him and pins him to the table, knocking over a couple of glasses and mugs in the process, with his arms behind his back so fast that even I cannot fully tell what is happening.

“I may not be on duty right now, but I don’t mind breaking some sense into a stupid teenager,” she says in a whisper that is as venomous as it is sultry. “Now why don’t you take this gentleman’s advice and leave before I finish considering whether or not to let your coach know that at least one of his players is a budding alcoholic.”

Nigel says nothing.

“That’s what I thought; now I am going to give you sixty seconds to disappear before I chase you down and show you that you are as much a half-decent athlete as I am Prince William.” She lets him go and after giving me one last look of contempt, he is trudging out the door with his friends close behind. The brunette leaves last, but not before she locks eyes with me.

Once again that same ghost of a smile shines through her gray brown eyes.

The detective scoffs as she stands beside me. “Kieran, sometimes I think that you want to get beat up.”

The moment is ruined before it could even be considered a moment—thankfully. “Cherise, I just don’t like seeing coffee from my best friend’s mother’s bar get contaminated by teenagers if I can help it,” I reply indifferently.

“If it wasn’t for that quality, I wouldn’t be going through all this effort to save people before they get hurt by you.”

An awkward silence follows between us. I knew as well as she did how well I was in a fight. Punching bags and a few boxing sessions paid off. “Do you think he noticed that the back of his varsity jacket looks like a breakfast special?” I ask, trying to fill the silence.

With her arms still crossed, Cherise looks me up and down. Then she bursts out laughing. I gently place my fingers over my mouth as I laugh with her.

“Che cosa era che tutto su?” we turn around and see Ales’ petite mother. Like her daughter, Cristina Neri, is a redhead of fair beauty even for a woman in her mid-forties.

“Sorry about the mess, Mrs. Neri, I’ll leave an extra tip to pay for those glasses that broke. I can’t speak Italian so am going to excuse myself,” Cherise walks away without another word.

“I can still speak English, Detective Alexon,” Ales’ mother calls after her in her obvious accent. “And thank you for leaving the extra tip.”

I lay a hand on her shoulder. “Cristina, you know as well as I do that when she is not being a police officer or threatening to break the arms of arrogant teens that she is doing her best to tease the people she is close to.”

“Beh, almeno c'è una persona in questo stabilimento, oltre a mia figlia, che posso parlare italiano con,” she says.

“Why do you think I wanted to learn Italian?” I tease.

“Non lo so, io se si voleva solo essere un poliglotta,” she teases back. “Now, how about the skillet breakfast you love so much?”

“Ooh, make the biscuits a little crispy, I might even leave very generous tip,” I grin while raising an eyebrow.

Cristina laughs heartily and walks off. I rejoin Ales at the counter.

“Bravo, Romeo,” she says, sliding a mug over to me. Hot chocolate.

“Oh, taci,” I say. Out of the corner of my eye I see her beaming smile.

“You must really be swooning over her in order to cause such a scene.”

I scoff. “I was just letting a guy know that he shouldn’t be drinking.”

“Yeah, right,” says Ales sarcastically. “And I, plus a number of iPhones, thought that Cherise was the one who was ‘just’ debasing some football player for looking at a woman like she was his next one-night stand when he already had a drop-dead-gorgeous girlfriend.”

I roll my eyes. She is acting like I am in denial. Perhaps I am, but am not going to become part of some teenage love triangle scenario. Nor was I ready to even consider getting into anything that resembled a romantic relationship. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Well, at least not until I was through with high school.

“And since you are probably not going to ask her yourself,” begins Ales, filling the silence, “her name is Pauline Marek. She’s on the cheerleading squad with me.”

“Oh, so she is a jock concubine by design,” I say dismissively as I sip my hot chocolate. I almost spill it as Ales smacks me in the back of the head.

“What does that make me?” she demands crossly.

I roll my eyes as I rub the back of my head. “I take it back.”

“Bene, it’s nice to see that you are not resorting to the use of high school stereotypes.”

“How is it that the cheer captain ends up being best friends with a low-key artist like me?” I ask absentmindedly.

“Non lo so, how does a low-key artist, like yourself, end up being diffidently popular?” I grimace at the emphasis she places on “low-key artist”. She always disliked it when I would sell myself short.

“I wouldn’t say ‘popular’ so much as I would say ‘notorious’.” We both know what I am speaking of and an awkward silence follows as we stare at the countertop. Eventually, Ales is the one to break the silence,

“Well, it looks like it has stopped raining again. I’m gonna go for a swim.”

Without even waiting for me to respond, she gets up and walks out the door. It wasn’t long after that my breakfast arrived. I can’t help but smile.

“Oh, Cristina, you never disappoint,” I say as I delve into my breakfast.

“And you can never seem to get a break from my daughter,” she laughs. “Let me know if you end up wanting dessert or something.” She knows I have quite an appetite—at least for one meal of the day. I watch as she walks off, unloading her tray of breakfast orders.

I chuckle. Twenty years and her business is still going strong. I have yet to meet someone within the zip code area who—if not been to—has at least heard of Ash Lake Bar & Grill.

My phone vibrates and I check it. I grimace as I see “Mom’s cell” across the screen. “Oh, boy.” I answer it.

“Kieran Telemachus Swann!” my mother roars through the phone.

“Hi, Mom,” I say docilely.

“That’s all you have to say to me?” demands Mom. “How about letting me know where you are going?”

“I’m sorry I didn’t leave a note, Mom; I’m at the bar.” When she didn’t say anything I correct myself, “Cristina’s bar.”

“Oh, okay,” the sudden change in my mother’s voice is a little flabbergasting. “Just remember to let me know before you run off.”

“Yes, Mom, do you need me to pick up any groceries before I come home today?” I always ask her that question whenever I go out.

“Mm, no not necessarily. I have to go, be safe.”

“Bye, Mom,” I hang up the phone and finish eating my breakfast. I start hearing people laugh outside before long. I smile. “This is going to be an eventful day.”