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“I do know that. And I love you, too. Why else would I put up with someone with the fashion sense of a stoned fifteen year old?” she said lightly, trying to cheer me up.
“You secretly admire my freewheeling style. Admit it,” I teased.
“Oh, of course. I mean, who else would pair a dress shirt with neon board shorts, leave it completely unbuttoned for the whole abs-for-grabs look, and then actually go out in public dressed like that? That’s definitely style, babe.”
“See? I knew it.” I kissed her forehead and said, “Ok, I’m going to leave you to your hats and go check out the waves at Kelly’s Cove. Gotta share all this style with the rest of the world, after all. Want to have brunch tomorrow?”
“Yup. See you then.”
I started to leave, but then remembered the present I had for Jess, and pulled something out of my pocket. “Hey. Think fast,” I said, tossing the object to her.
Jess caught it effortlessly, then grinned when she took a look at what was in her hand. It was a yellow rubber duck, dressed like Audrey Hepburn in a little black dress, pearls, and big sunglasses. “It’s you in duck form,” I told her, then winked and headed for the door.
“That’s actually cute,” she conceded. “But they’re still not ducks.”
On the drive out to Kelly’s Cove, I mulled over the question of Dmitri’s money. Probably, it was mafia money. I assumed his uncle compensated Dmitri for the meetings, for his role in the whole operation. Which basically meant that even if Dmitri didn’t actually sell heroin, for example, he still profited from its sale indirectly.
There really was no way to be ok with it, no way to see it as a grey area.
Someone like my father certainly wouldn’t see that as a grey area. It was drug money, it was wrong. End of discussion. And ok, now that I thought about it, I saw it that way, too. That big house, the giant flat screen TV, the car – I enjoyed the hell out of all of that. But if it really was all paid for with money made through criminal activity, then it was all a problem.
When I got to Kelly’s Cove I sat in my van for a long time, staring out at the ocean from my vantage point near the Cliff House, trying to think through my moral dilemma. Was I going to refuse to spend any time at Dmitri’s house because it was paid for through illegal means? Ok, no, I wasn’t going to boycott his home. Was I never going to let him buy me so much as a beer when we went out, because his money was ‘dirty’? Where did I draw the line?
The real question in the end was whether this was enough of an issue to make me stay away from Dmitri. And the answer to that was: absolutely not. I had precious little time with him anyway, and I wasn’t going to let this or any other issue get in the way of spending every moment I possibly could with the man I loved before he married someone else.
The back of my eyes prickled as tears cued up, but I held them back. Shit. I didn’t want him to get married – not to anyone that wasn’t me. He said he loved me. So why the fuck was he marrying someone else? Charlie had said he loved me, too, and then he basically did the same thing. Why the hell did this keep happening to me?
I’d been trying to pretend I was dealing with the fact that Dmitri was engaged. I was trying to pretend that I could just enjoy these ten months, trying to pretend that it was even remotely conceivable that I could walk away from him at the end of it.
Who the hell was I kidding?
It broke my heart. More than that. It shattered me. But I wasn’t going to sit here in public and cry about it. That wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
My phone buzzed then, and I fished it out of my pocket. Dmitri had texted: Hi baby. Miss you. What are you doing? I love you and can’t wait to see you tonight. xxxx
My phone was signaling a low battery, so I typed quickly: I love you too. Phone’s almost dead. Am at the beach. See u tonight, and hit send.
And then I very nearly texted please don’t get married. I got as far as typing the words on my screen. But texting was hardly the way to say this. I needed to talk to him. And, what? Beg him not to marry this woman, whoever she was? Would I do that? And when he told me he was marrying her anyway, then what?
After deleting the message without sending it, I tossed the phone on the passenger seat. I clambered into the back of the van and changed into my wetsuit and grabbed my board, then wrenched open the rusty panel door, which gave way as always with a blood-curdling shriek of rusty metal on metal. I wasn’t going to sulk, not now. I jumped out of the van and yanked the door shut behind me.
