Candy’s always got an answer.
“I got a baby y’know. She’s two. My mom’s watching her.”
But it’s a lie and I know it ‘cause half the things out of her mouth are.
We meet on Sunrise Highway. She honks her horn, pulls me over. I go because shit, I’m nineteen, two hotties with the top rolled down, two a.m., the beers wearing off but still just enough to make me curious for where the night may go.
“You know this address?” she asks, sucking on a Newport menthol.
I look at that little piece of paper, squiggly green handwriting. Bubble letters. Tiny hearts over the I’s.
“Yeah, ya not far.”
“Great.” She nods, heads off to the Sebring.
“Wait. Boyfriend or something?”
“It’s my father. Well,” she turns back. Her eyes are glassy. She takes two drags and blows a smoke ring towards my face. “I think he’s cheating.”
She balls up that little piece of paper.
“Bitch’s house.”
Tosses it at my chest.
“I can come with you,” I say. Beer courage. Two a.m. on the side of the highway.
Her friend’s beeping the horn. Motioning her along like it’s nothing new.
“Nah.”
She flicks the butt to the ground, grinds her heel into it.
“But I’ll give you my number.”
Half-ass grin.
“You’re not a serial killer, or anything?”
“No. But Joel Rifkin’s my uncle.”
Her mouth opens but the smile stays.
“I’m kidding,” I say.
We spend the next two weeks attached at the hip. Lazy beach days. Nights by a bonfire. Or at the club. Malibu’s the one we can’t get enough of. Hip hop and house. Southern Comfort by the truckload.
She dances on top of the bar and all I can do is watch.
One night we stay at the beach. Way past dark. Not another soul in sight. We fuck in the sand, those little green flies leaving my ass so marked up, it looks like a Battleship board.
It’s another week of heaven. We find ourselves in every dingy motel with hourly rates. A new one every day because well, variety is the spice of life, ain’t it?
Today it’s the Royal Inn. A crummy mattress with nicotine stains. I’m still scratching, not sure if it’s the beach flies or bedbugs.
We just got done and she’s lying on my chest. TV’s playing Judge Judy. Dude with shifty eyes double crossing his brother.
“This is nice, right?” I say. But she don’t say anything.
I hear muffled sounds. Same sounds my family cat makes when she’s locked out the back door.
“Candy.” I stroke her cheek with two fingers.
“I gotta go. Mom’s making brisket tonight.”
She pulls my fingers away, places them back on the bed.
“Don’t wanna miss that.”
Then she’s gone. Like that.
A few days. A week. More.
I’m calling her but she’s not answering. I even try paging her from a pay phone. Second later, hearing it ring, too pissed to answer, just walk back to my car.
There’s a mutual friend—some chick Laura that tags around from time to time. I try her instead but it’s not the answer I want.
“You know Candy’s got a boyfriend. Well. Fiancé. It’s serious.”
Candy. Always keeping me guessing.
She finally calls. One night I’m half asleep in my bed. Stretch out and grab the phone before it wakes my folks.
“Come meet me,” she says and I go.
We head out to the pier. It’s too late for the fishermen. Too early for the fishermen. So it’s just us. The night’s raw and cool for August. We sit on the pier and let our legs swing out over the water, black as oil. She’s got a flannel tied at her waist, and shorts too short for the cold.
“Your boyfriend?” I ask her.
But she just shoots me one of those smiles. The one I could never figure out. Thin lips, her overbite, long blond hair hanging over her bare shoulders.
“Husband,” she says. Then laughs. Elbows me in the ribs. Like we’re some vaudeville team about to get booed off the stage.
“You serious?”
She just leans into me and I pull her closer and for a moment there’s no one else, nothing else, just the wind blasting into the pilings, the crickets singing.
I stroke her hair and she lets me. We take turns making up lyrics to songs we’ll never write. Her rhymes have bite, mine linger around the edges.
We settle on a band name.
“Rifkin and Darlene,” she says. “I like it.”
“Why Darlene?”
“Why not?”
Her eyes are far off, past the pier, the horizon where the glow of the moon simmers over the ocean.
We leave when the sun comes up. When the fishermen take back their paradise.
Two egg sandwiches from Junior’s. Hers devoured, mine barely touched.
“Save it for your uncle Joel,” she winks at me.
I pull up to her door. And for a minute we just sit there saying nothing, doing nothing.
“I’ll call you,” I say.
She shrugs. Twirls her hair.
Gives me that Candy smile.
Then she’s gone.