Page 3 of Christmas Eve Do-Over
2
Duke
"You coming to grab a beer with us, Duke?" Joe, one of the guys that rode Harleys this morning, slapped me on the back as he walked by. We were done handing out toys and gifts at the foster home, all too happy to shed the hot Santa suits. Even in winter, with the sun out, HB got warm.
"Nah, I've got some things to take care of. I'll see you next weekend." I pasted on a smile, but my brain whirled.
Shasta.
Of all the people I wasn't expecting to run into, it was her. You could safely say she was "the one that got away" when I was in high school. I'd summoned every last bit of courage I possessed and asked her to prom senior year. She'd said yes, and we'd clicked right away. Shasta was the type of girl everyone wanted to date. She was beautiful, smart, popular, funny as hell, and made you feel good just being around her. We dated for a whole year, every moment of which was pure bliss for me. I knew I wanted to marry her, but also admitted we were still too young. She owned my heart, marriage or not. But apparently she didn't feel the same.
She dumped me for some loser with a fast car and shitty early ’90s rap blasting from the speakers. So I drowned my sorrows in UB40’sCan't Help Falling in Loveon repeat until my tear ducts revolted and then I worked my ass off as a new lifeguard on the beach. If you couldn't tell, I was a bit of a music geek, remembering life events based on the song that was playing at the time.
Where was I in the Northridge earthquake? I didn't know, but I could tell you what song was playing:Heroby Mariah Carey.
Eventually, I worked through the heartbreak, moved out of town, and kept working as a beach lifeguard for various cities up and down the southern California coastline. I married a woman (LeAnn RimesHow Do I Livewas the song we danced our first dance to), tried for years to have kids, but found out many expensive and invasive tests later that we couldn't. Instead of adopting, we fought. And ultimately our marriage disintegrated. We parted ways as amicably as two people can who've known each other more intimately than anyone else and one day decided they didn't love each other anymore.
I'm not bitter, I promise. I'm just lonely.
So when the spitfire known as Shasta tapped me on the shoulder out of the blue and gave me a verbal lashing the likes of which I hadn't seen in a while, I was stunned. So stunned I said some things back to her, then realized she didn't know my identity due to the Santa outfit. And I panicked and took off.
Pretty stupid for a guy who's lonely, right?
She thought I was some kind of pedophile or, at best, a guy who would grab an unsuspecting woman and pull her onto my lap. I mean what was I supposed to do? Say “hi, I'm your ex-boyfriend. Wanna quit threatening me and go on a date instead?” That was just stupid, even for me. For all I knew, she wouldn't even remember me! It had been twenty-plus years since we'd seen each other, after all.
I reached my new house off Pine, just a few blocks away from Main Street. Somebody had torn down the old house and built a new two-story modern structure with my favorite feature: the flat roof with seating for stargazing, or fireworks watching if it were the Fourth of July. I parked my Harley right next to my bright red Corvette. One look at my garage and you'd deduce I was skirting the edges of a mid-life crisis. Hey, I may have gray at my temples and in my beard, but my rides were fast and shiny new. What more could a guy ask for?
I pulled up a step stool and climbed up to reach the top shelves in my garage. Pulling down an old plastic tub, I flipped off the lid and dug through the contents until I found what I was looking for.
My senior yearbook.
I sat on the top step of the stool and ran my hand over the bubbled cover. 1992. Didn't seem so long ago when you looked at the date, but the memories were ancient. Nearly black and white in my head, like an old-time movie. Flipping the yearbook open, a heavy cloud of old paper and ink wafting up to my nose. Unfamiliar faces smiled back at me, frozen forever with the unfortunate bangs, flipped bobs, and crimped hair of the early ’90s.
I chuckled to myself, realizing I was one of the unfortunate ones, seeing as how my hair was bleached blond and parted down the middle like I was part of a boy band. No wonder Shasta ditched me.
Then I turned the page and my eye snagged on the little class photo of Shasta. Big smile, bright eyes, that dimple that made me lose my train of thought. Her blonde hair was as big as her personality. I remembered watching her in the halls that year, wondering if I had a shot. I saw her bouncing around with her friends, her smile drawing in boys and girls alike.
I remembered the way she'd link pinkies with me when we first started dating, the thought of holding hands too much but she couldn't stand to not be touching in some way. Or the way she looked in a swimsuit that summer, all lush curves and pale skin. I'd pretended to worry about her burning in the hot SoCal sun, just so I could rub sunblock all over her. Damn, she was the center of my focus for a whole year.
Well, longer really, when you accounted for the months I wallowed in my depression about her dumping me. That familiar ache flaring up again in my chest surprised me. It all happened so long ago, but the pain of her rejection still hurt. It didn't sting my pride anymore (thank God for time and maturing), but the loss of her, the very essence of her as a person, was still devastating.
I shut the book with a snap that echoed through my garage, then dumped the book back in the box. The lid wouldn't snap back on so I rearranged the contents, an old framed photo of my ex-wife and me staring back at me.
Well, hole-e-shit, that was another can of emotional worms I didn't particularly want to open. I slammed the lid back on, letting out a sigh of relief when it snapped into place. Better to keep that all locked away. No good could come from digging in the past and reliving old hurts. It was time to move forward.
In no way whatsoever was I going to go hunt down Shasta and find out what she was doing in Huntington Beach. She might live here for all I knew. I'd just moved here myself, so there was a lot about the town I had yet to learn. I had a few buddies here from my time in the ’guards, but they didn't fill the empty hole in my chest. Not that Shasta could either, but the idea had been planted, despite my best intentions.
As I lay in bed that night, I wondered what she did for a living, if she was married, if she had kids. If she ever thought of me and wished we'd stayed together. Toni Braxton'sAnother Sad Love Songlooped through my head as I dreamt. I tossed and turned all night, unable to escape a buxom blonde with a smile that turned my world upside down.
* * *
Christmas Day was upon us and I spent it as I usually did the last few years: alone. I couldn't bear yet another holiday filled with silence so I headed out to my therapy place, to the little cement bench on the strand overlooking Dog's Beach.
I let the ocean waves and cold breeze work their magic on me. This stretch of beach was beautiful in the winter. No crowds, just endless white sand, soft rolling waves, seagulls crying and swooping through the air. It was hard to remain depressed in the face of such beauty.
When my heart had let go of my loneliness and I'd reached a state of gratitude, I pulled out my smartphone and did what had my fingers tingling since I'd woken up this morning. I Googled Shasta's name.
Thankfully, HB was a small town and Shasta wasn't a common first name. I didn't know if her maiden name was her last name anymore so I used her first and hoped for the best. And like the one little present under the tree you didn't see until you thought you were done opening everything, the gift of her name came up first thing on the search results page.
She worked right here in HB, just a few streets over from where I sat. She owned a Jiu Jitsu studio and, from the looks of the webpage, she was certainly successful at it. When I read her bio I realized I should have taken her threat yesterday a little more seriously. She was a double black belt in three different martial arts disciplines.
It hadn't been an empty threat. The woman could have kicked my ass and left me with no sack.
My eyes narrowed again when I read one particular line of her bio: "From personal experience, I believe a woman should always know how to protect herself. It could be the difference between life and death."
Well, what in holy hell did that mean? My protective instincts kicked in and I couldn't stop my brain from going through various scenarios of what may have happened to her. Before I could think it through too much, I was on my feet, an urgent plan forming and taking up all available headspace.
I pocketed my phone and off I marched.
I'd visit her studio.
