Page 32 of Jesse

CHAPTER TWLEVE - JESSE

KEY WEST - THIRTEEN YEARS AGO

Her name is Emma. I asked a friend of a friend to find out for me and that’s the answer he came back with.

Local. Working a shaved ice kiosk down in Mallory Square. Her parents own a dive shop, she has three brothers, and she plans on going out of state for college after graduation.

I must’ve been too drunk that first night we arrived. That’s the only explanation I can come up with for why I didn’t immediately see this little pig-tailed siren of a girl with the plump pouty lips calling me to my death on her rocky island of shaved ice.

I missed her. I’ve been here two whole weeks already. Two weeks I could’ve been spending with her, and only her. And instead I’ve settled for stand-ins and second-bests.

How? How did I miss you?

“What can I get for you?” she says.

It’s hot as fuck today and the sun is blazing down on me with the heat of an eternal hell I will surely end up in once I get this sweet siren of a girl back to my yacht.

She’s wearing a white tank top that hugs her bronze skin, a pair of Daisy Duke cut-off shorts, and those goddamned curly pigtails bob and bounce around her heart-shaped face like we’re floating underwater.

“Hello?” she says. “I don’t have all day here. There’s like fifty people in my line. What flavor do you want?”

“You,” I say.

She makes a face. She has this perpetual frown, I’ve noticed. My friend calls it her resting bitch face, but that’s not right. That’s totally wrong. It’s a pout only one girl in a million can pull off. Her mouth is small and perky. Her lips are bright pink and plump. And just the outer corners turn down. Not like she’s mad or sad.

But like someone disappointed her. Someone let her down.

“Oh, God,” she says. “Look. I’ve got pineapple, I’ve got berry berry, I’ve got piña colada, cherry vanilla, banana cream, and key lime pie. And just so you know, there’s no cream in the banana cream. It’s just a name.”

I smile at her.

“OK, piña colada.”

“No,” I say, snapping out of my trance. “Cherry.”

“Cherry vanilla. Very original. What size?”

“I don’t care.”

“Good. Large it is. In a souvenir cup. I get a bonus every time I sell ten of those. That’ll be twelve fifty.”

She turns her back to me and starts scooping ice into a large pink plastic cup that says Mallory Square on it. I should be looking at her ass. Or the way her back moves underneath the thin white tank top. Or her pigtails, still bouncing and bobbing around her head as she places my cup of ice underneath a vat of cherry-flavored sugar juice.

But that’s not what I see at all.

I see us. Tonight. Maybe watching the sunset from the upper deck of my yacht. Or down below, doing other things.

She turns back around and smiles.

And holy mother of God. The smile is even better than the pout. “Uh,” she says. “You’re cute and all, but it’s not free. Twelve fifty.”

I reach for my wallet in the back pocket of my board shorts, pull out a twenty, and say, “You can keep the change.”

She sucks in a deep breath of air. Looks at my bill. Then takes it and says, “Whatever,” as she punches buttons on the cash register and the drawer pops open.

“So… tonight,” I say.

She frowns at me. “Tonight what?”