The Truth About Sex & Surfing [Featured Story]

Chapter twenty

But Jimmy didn't stop. He cupped her face with his hands, stared into her eyes. Time slowed down, then stopped. If his face was still moving toward hers, it was doing so exceptionally slowly. Bit by bit by bit by bit. They were just about to kiss, and Hailey was so embarrassed she made a face -- bugged her eyes out, blew up her cheeks like a goldfish's, waggled her ears.

"It's not right!" The air pffted out. "I tried. Sort of. It's just not going to work."

Jimmy kept staring at her.

"Besides," she said, "what would Sadie think?"

Never before had Hailey heard Jimmy whisper. Now he did: "Sadie loves you. You know that."

"What about Jenn?" She was grasping at straws; she was okay with that. All she needed was one damn good straw. "I don't want a bunch of terrible punk rock lyrics written about me. Like, 'I know this girl who really sucks, yeah yeah yeah yeah'."

"C'mon, be serious."

"I am serious! That's exactly what her stuff sounds like—"

"Jenn's out of the picture. She's left me, she's out on the road now. You know that, too."

"Well. I guess it's what I think that's the problem." She looked at him. She thought he would yell, chew her out, tell her she was wrong. At the same time, she was not afraid.

"Okay. Okay, forget it," he said, staring at her another moment before letting his hands drop. "I give up. You win."

He swung around, slid off his stool, walked down the center aisle, pushed through the kitchen's swinging door. It was ten minutes before Hailey realized he wasn't coming back, at least not tonight. She sat in the empty bar, sipping her last beer, brushing the odd tear away with a tiny little cocktail napkin.

Damn it, she thought. That hadn't gone so well. Was this what it meant to be a mature adult? You got your boss-slash-business-partner to give up trying to convince you to love him back, then when you were all alone you cried in your drink like a loser about the Australian surfer who got away? It seemed too bizarre. The only upside was that, with Dylan on another continent, there'd never be an awkward run-in, like the two of them meeting by accident at the post office or the gas station or some other bar. How could this realization depress her even further? (Maybe because it meant she'd never see him again. Yeah, that was it right there. Oh god. Ouch.) With what felt like the entire force of her heart, she wished she could ask her mom if this is what it was all meant to be like, but then, she was always wishing that. If they were to look in on her now – say, if her parents were people outside on the street, heading home late, and they happened to look into the plate-glass window into the dark of the bar, they'd see her sitting there, drinking alone, her head hanging, a crumpled-up napkin in her hand. The thought made her lift her head up. She didn't want her parents to see her like this, even if she knew they weren't actually looking and that she really was alone. She slid off her stool, picked up a bar towel and started wiping down the worn, old wood.

It seemed natural enough to start cleaning behind the bar, too. When she'd finished the bar, she removed the bottles behind it and wiped down the glass shelves. Then she emptied out the massive ice bucket into the sink and scrubbed the inside till her fingers were numb. She dusted the lines of the soda gun, cleaned the spout. No one could tell her to go home. She could stay here as long as she liked, clean all night if she wanted. This place was half hers – time to start acting like it. "I am co-owner of this establishment," she said out loud, to no one. "This is my place."

Before she left, she put a note on the door letting the customers know that Jimmy's would be closed for two days, and she left a voicemail for the cleaning company to come and start the job.