Synopsis: Ana Franks moved away from her small hometown to start over. Five years later she finds herself with a new appearance, but the love for a long-time flame never fully extinguished.
My pale skin sizzles underneath the late afternoon sun. I could never tan. Even as a child. Blame it on my grandmother’s eastern European genes, but it doesn’t keep me from enjoying the mild burn. The salty breeze from the deep azure and cerulean waves roll a sheen of mist across my flush skin. A temporary balm but making it nearly impossible to get back to work.
I hate my job. Pier maintenance is what the job description said. What is should have said was, Glorified Bird Shit Cleaner. The only benefit to cleaning up after drunk frat boys and inconsiderate sea gulls is the view. The contrast of burnt orange and marigold hues intermixed with deep lilacs was a strict dichotomy.
With one last inhale of sea air, I rise, and grab the power washer wand from where it lays beside me on the pier. From the corner of my eye I can see Dimitri glaring from the terrace of the Café & Pizzeria, hands on his hips. My free hand finds use in flipping Dimitri the bird as a respond.
“Well, that wasn’t very nice,” a rich voice speaks from my left.
Skittish being another one of my more admirable personality traits, I screech, and flail about. The power washer, wand in tow, falls into the Gulf as I slip on the standing water and land with my back against the weathered boards.
“Holy shit! Are you okay?” The same male voice asks.
After what feels like hours, air finds its way back into my lungs, and I open my eyes in a gasp. Soft brown waves, and eyes of matching chocolate, gaze down at me from above. The sun a halo of light behind his amused features.
“I’ll be fine.” Humiliation hits me harder than the pier did.
“I didn’t mean to startle you. I saw you sitting out here alone and thought it looked peaceful.”
“So, you felt it was necessary to come and interrupt that?” Soaking wet, I get myself up from my position and nearly swallow my tongue. Isaac Wrothman. THE Isaac Wrothman stands a mere three feet from me, and I feel like I want to vomit. The crush of my high school career is a mere lunge and snag’s length away and I can’t move. He must not recognize me, because he continues to look at me like it’s for the first time.
Isaac examines my now sandy brown hair, falsely died black all through high school, and the skintight Café & Pizzeria t-shirt. High school was not kind to me to say the least.
He laughs. Fuck, he has a beautiful laugh.
“Well, to be honest, you seemed so carefree. I could use some carefree right about now. I’m Isaac--,” he says, but I cut him off.
“I’m wet.” The hell?
“Um, okay. Nice to meet you wet.”
“No! I’m sorry. I’m not wet, I’m Anna. I mean, yes, you did get me wet, but that’s not my name.”
Isaac’s eyes bulge at my rambling. It’s then it registers what I said.
Good god almighty.
I don’t tell him we’ve met. I can’t. Isaac was the most popular guy at Southwest High. Even though we’ve been out of high school nearly five years, something about the guy I fell in love in middle school geology class still turns me into a blubbering idiot. I was the girl who came from nothing. Mom worked two jobs while dad skipped out after finding out mom was pregnant. Isaac came from breeding stock, as my mother called it. His dad was loaded and his mom was the local physician in our small town.
After graduating from Southwest, I moved to Naples, lost a ton of weight, dropped the emo fad, and chose to start over. Figure out who I was. Turns out I’m a bird shit cleaner. Who knew?
“I know this is going to sound insane, but can I show you something?” Isaac asks.
“Uh, sure. I guess.” I look around to see no one on the pier but us. The late afternoon day slowly turning into evening.
I follow behind Isaac as he walks toward the pier entry, jumping down from the landing onto the beach below. The sand squishes between my toes from the low tide. I try my best to stay away from underneath the pier during high tide. Even though I can swim, I’ve always been terrified of drowning. Let’s just say I love the ocean, but only from a far.
“We’re almost there,” Isaac says.
Rounding one of the pilings, I catch something from the corner of my eye. I stall and turn to see what it could be. Reflections of the summer sun beaming off what looks like gold leaf. It is when I fully face the pilings, do I see the image in its entirety. A mural of the ocean, tails propelling humanoid creatures through the waves of Poseidon as he stands watch with his trident.
I gasp at the beauty of it all.
“What do you think?” Isaac asks.
“It’s stunning,” I say, barely audible over the lapping of the waves.
“When I saw you sitting on the pier earlier, you reminded me of someone. I had just finished the last section there, and thought it was such an uncanny coincidence.”
I follow Isaac’s finger to a mermaid on the far-right piling. Her onyx hair falling around her bare chest in a voluminous array, the gold leaf speckling in her tail sets off the amber in her hazel eyes. I’m speechless.
“I had the biggest crush on her in high school. Always so dark and broody, but I knew there was something more. I just wish I had done something about it then. It’s good to see you again, Anastasia.”