Under The Boardwalk

Other than his brief visit two nights ago, it had been seven years since he had been to the board walk, but his feet remembered and moved him in the direction of old habits.

He found himself in front of his favorite pizza place, the scent of spicy sauce and warm crust carrying on the salty breeze. The sign in front read: Short Stuff’s Pizzeria.

Without conscious thought he moved around the side of the building to the back door. When he opened it, the door creaked just as it used to. Smiling in memory, he stepped into the dimness of the back room. The place wasn’t empty. There were about eight kids sitting at an old picnic table, eating from a platter of pizza that sat in the middle of the table. Some things never change, he thought.

For a moment, he felt as if he’d stepped backward in time. He sat down at a small table near where the kids sat and allowed the ambience to overtake him.

This is where he’d come every day for lunch, to see Nikki and eat his fill of Bridget’s “mistakes.” He closed his eyes, remembering the anticipation that each afternoon he’d run across the hot sand of the beach to come here, eager to see Nikki, hold her in his arms, steal a kiss from her in the small kitchen of the restaurant. He’d grab her by the waist and pull her up against him, unashamed of his aching desire for her. Those kisses…she tasted of pepperoni and tomato sauce, and her hair smelled of doughy crust.

“Hmm, you taste so good,” he’d whisper in her ear, then he’d lean down to explore her lips again.

“You taste better.” She would laugh, and with the tip of her tongue she would trace the contours of his mouth while she teasingly pressed her body intimately against his.

She’d loved to tease him, but he hadn’t minded. He’d known instinctively that the promises she made with her eyes and caresses would eventually be fulfilled. He’d never doubted that at night, when the shadows deepened beneath the boardwalk, they’d meet and follow through on the teasing promises they’d made to each other during the light of day.

He forced his attention back to the present, and realized that coming here had been a mistake. The scent of the pizza, the kid’s laughter, the warmth of the room, all combined to bring back memories Grey didn’t want to entertain.

He could still remember his rage when two months after he’d gone to college, his father had brought the news clipping announcing her wedding. Grey had fallen apart, and he now realized that even after all this time, he still hadn’t completely pulled himself together.

Yes, this was a mistake, coming to this pizza place where the memories were as pungent as the scent of garlic and oregano. He stood up to leave, and at that moment Nikki entered the room from the kitchen, carrying a platter of pizza slices.

She saw him immediately and for a moment she froze, like a frightened deer caught in the brilliant beams of a car’s headlight. He saw the color rise in her cheeks, saw her large hazel eyes darken in some indefinable emotion and he wondered if she remembered those summer days when Bridget’s kitchen had served as one of their trysting places where they had both learned about the hypnotic power of love and sex. He felt a heaviness begin in his loins, the stirrings of a desire he now found repugnant.

Memories slammed into Nikki’s head, memories she had repressed for a very long time.

“Hurry Grey, kiss me before Bridget comes back in.”

“I don’t want to kiss you in a hurry. I want to kiss you slowly, thoroughly.” She’d giggled, but raised her lips once again, seeking the heat of his.

“Tonight,” she’d promised, arching her back as his hands pressed her lower body closer against him.

“Nikki, don’t move like that against me or I can’t be held responsible for my actions.”

“I like it when you aren’t responsible for your actions.”

His eyes had been dark and dangerous and she had loved it, loved him.

Even now, she felt her breasts responding to the vividness of her memories, her nipples tightening and surging against her T-shirt. She jerked her gaze away from him, appalled at her body’s traitorous weakness, her mind’s lapse of sanity.

“Here we are, kids,” she said, forcing a lighthearted tone as she set the pizza on the table. She was conscious of Grey’s gaze still on her. She steeled herself against the onslaught of emotions and walked over to where he sat at the small table.

“I thought we were meeting at the theater in an hour,” she said.

“I just wanted to see if Bridget still ran her soup kitchen for the kids.”

“Every day, although you know she’d kick you in the shin if she heard you refer to it as a soup kitchen. Bridget maintains she’s merely getting rid of all the ‘mistakes’ she can’t serve to paying customers.”

Grey nodded, a ghost of a smile moving a corner of his mouth. “If Bridget really made as many mistakes as she says she does, she’d have been out of business a long time ago.”

“You know Bridget feeds a lot of hungry children…some of whom won’t get another meal until tomorrow morning when they return here.” Nikki leaned forward, focusing on the issue at hand and trying to ignore the way his familiar scent surrounded her. “Grey, these kids come from broken homes, they have alcoholic or drug-dependent parents. Bridget not only gives them a hot meal, she also gives them a sympathetic ear, friendly support, a reason to go on fighting to make something of themselves.”

“Nikki, you don’t have to convince me about the good Bridget does here. Have you forgotten that I was one of Bridget’s waifs?”

She straightened her shoulders defensively. “No, I haven’t forgotten that. I just want to make sure you haven’t. The people on the boardwalk were good to you. They didn’t care who your family was or what your problems were. They accepted you without reservation.”

“That’s true,” he agreed, his tone suddenly weary.

“Then how can you think of closing us down?” she asked with a touch of anger.

“Nikki, I can’t make a business decision based on the fact that some people were nice to me years ago. I have to make a decision based on my head, not my heart.”

At that moment, Bridget entered from the kitchen. “What’s this? A new boy on the boardwalk?” Her face beamed a smile as she approached Grey and Nikki. “Greyson Blakemore…all grown-up and looking mighty fine.”

“Hello, Bridget, you’re looking ravishing yourself,” Grey said, returning a smile to the little woman who immediately joined him at the table.

“I heard you were back. It’s about time you returned to your roots. What kept you away for so long?” Bridget asked.

Grey shrugged, his answer lost as Nikki fled into the kitchen. Once there, she leaned against the stainless steel refrigerator door, remembering his arms wrapped around her, the two of them lying in the sand. “Forever,” he’d whispered in her ear and she’d believed him. Damn him for his lies. Damn him for making her think their love could overcome the differences in their backgrounds…anything the world threw at them. Damn him for making forever so very brief.

“Nikki?” Bridget entered the kitchen. “Grey says he’s ready for his tour whenever you are. He’ll wait for you outside.”

Nikki sighed. “I might as well get it over with,” she said more to herself than to Bridget. After taking a deep breath, she walked through the back room and out into the sunshine. “Where to first?” she asked without preamble.

He pulled a handful of papers out of his pocket. “Before he died, my father had been receiving complaints about safety violations. I thought we’d check those out first.”

“I can’t imagine what kind of violations there would be concerning safety. Sure, things need painting, but safety has always been a priority here.”

He handed her one of the papers, a letter written complaining about the hazardous condition of the Ferris wheel. She scanned the contents quickly. “You can’t take this seriously,” she scoffed. “Whoever sent it didn’t even sign it. Probably one of the townspeople who didn’t win a stuffed animal and wrote this in a snit.”

“Still, I intend to take it seriously,” he returned evenly. “Nikki, if there’s any chance of keeping the boardwalk open, I’m going to have to see what kinds of obstacles we’re facing, what kind of financial backing it will take to make Land’s End more profitable. So, we take these things one at a time and check them out, okay?”

Minutes later as Pete Ely, the Ferris wheel owner, showed Grey the documentation of recent safety inspections, Nikki studied Grey, trying to attain some objectivity. It had been easier to maintain distance when she’d seen him before, when he’d been dressed in his tailored suit and expensive dress shirt. But today, wearing a pair of worn dungarees and a short-sleeved sports shirt, he was uncomfortably like the Grey of her youth, the Grey she had loved with a passion that had been all-ending. But the man of her past had made his choices. He chose to end his responsibility to her with an envelope of money. Blakemores didn’t get involved with boardwalk brats—how many times had she been warned of that? Still, she’d been certain in her heart that Grey wasn’t like the other Blakemores. She’d been wrong.

She wished he’d married. Perhaps if he was married, she wouldn’t be feeling the insidious stirrings of temptation. Every time she looked into the dark depths of his eyes, she saw an image of a serpent, whispering that it was safe to taste the juicy apple. But she’d already tasted the meat of the fruit, and she’d discovered that it bore bitter seeds.

“Well, I guess this takes care of that particular issue,” Grey said, frowning as he looked up at the Ferris wheel. “Although it certainly could use a fresh coat of paint.”

“Everything around here could use a fresh coat of paint,” Nikki replied. “We went to your father several months ago and asked if he would be willing to lower the rent for a few months so we could use the extra money to make some improvements, but he refused.”

“Point taken,” he replied as he moved in the direction of the carousel. Nikki lagged behind, dreading to go to the place where it had all begun so many years ago.

His footsteps slowed as he approached the ancient merry-go-round and she wondered if he, too, was entertaining thoughts from the past.

She watched as he stepped up on the carousel’s platform, his feet moving him toward the huge silver steed they’d fought over. He placed a hand on the saddle that had once been such a brilliant blue, but was now worn to the paleness of distant dreams. “It hardly seems worth fighting over now, does it?” He smiled wistfully and ran his hand lightly down the horse’s flank. “In my mind, it was always bigger, brighter.”

“I guess when you look back, you always remember things as being much better than they really were,” she said pointedly.

“Who’s running the equipment now?” he asked, removing his hand from the horse as dark shutters slid into place over his eyes.