Under The Boardwalk. Carla Cassidy
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.
“Walt Simon.”
“Walt Simon? He must be a hundred years old by now.”
Nikki couldn’t hide a small smile. Everyone was surprised by Walt’s longevity and eternally youthful spirit. At that moment, Walt himself walked out from behind the ticket booth, his keen blue eyes immediately spying Nikki and Grey.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he exclaimed, moving toward them with the peculiar gait of age and arthritis. He held out his hand to Grey, who clasped it and shook it vigorously. “Well, I’ll be double damned.” He grinned, a toothless smile that transformed his grizzled, weathered face into that of an innocent child. “I knew you wouldn’t stay away forever. You and Nikki were my very best customers for a lot of summers. First ones on when I opened and the last ones to ride before I’d close up. Remember?”
“I remember,” Grey said, smiling tightly as he dropped the old man’s hand.
“Yes, sir,” Walt said with a wistful smile that fully displayed his toothless gums. “Those were the days. The walkways were filled with people, and I’d have lines of kiddies waiting to ride the fellas.” Walt frowned suddenly. “I don’t get lines anymore.” He looked at Grey anxiously. “Have you come back to help us? Have you come to breathe life back into Land’s End?”
“He doesn’t know whether to breathe life into it or suck the last of its life out of it,” Nikki explained.
“Suck the…you mean close us down?” Walt looked at Grey incredulously. “But, you wouldn’t do that, would you, Grey?”
Grey grimaced. “Walt, I’m trying to make a sound business decision.”
“Grey has taken over the Blakemore family business interests,” Nikki interjected.
“But you never were like the rest of those people,” Walt protested. “Your family always made business decisions, but you always made heart decisions.” He gazed at Grey in sadness. “I don’t understand nothing anymore.” He ran a gnarled hand through his thin, gray hair. “I’ve fought the Blakemores for the past fifty years. I always thought you’d be different…somehow better.”
Nikki noted the slight flush of color that suffused Grey’s face as he stiffened his back. “There’s nothing to understand, Walt. I have obligations and priorities. I am a Blakemore.”
And don’t ever forget it, Nikki mentally added. There was a time when she had forgotten, but she had paid the price and now would never make that mistake again.
“You know, if you decide to close us down and move us off, we won’t make it easy for you,” Walt observed. He grinned like a mischievous boy. “Me and the fellas—” he gestured to the carousel horses “—we can be pretty damn stubborn when we set our minds to it.”
Grey’s eyes glinted with a touch of admiration at Walt’s distinct challenge.
From the carousel they moved on, Grey surveying the condition of the wooden walkways, making notes about everything he saw.
Nikki found herself seeing the area through his eyes, and what she saw made her despair. So much was required, so much needed to be done. Nobody wanted to come to a tourist area that smelled of hopelessness.
What they needed was somebody who cared, somebody who would risk making an investment in the area. Grey’s father, Thomas Blakemore, hadn’t cared. He’d only wanted to collect the rent money due him each month.
Did Grey care? She didn’t know anymore. She didn’t know him anymore. He’d once cared deeply, passionately for this area and its people. She watched him as he studied Jim’s guns at the shooting gallery. Could she somehow tap into those old feelings he’d once had for the boardwalk? For the sake of her friends, she hoped so. But she wasn’t sure if it was possible. After all, he’d also once cared deeply and passionately for her, but that feeling had died a swift and permanent death.
“I don’t know, Nikki,” he said moments later as he moved to where she stood looking out over the water. “It doesn’t look good.” He carefully folded the notes he’d made and placed them into his pocket, knowing he’d spend half the night viewing and reviewing, analyzing and reanalyzing his observations. “I see a lot on the minus side of the balance sheet and not many pluses.”
“There’s one thing you won’t find written down on your reports…the enchantment. Grey, have you forgotten the enchantment of Land’s End? Have you forgotten how this place embraced you, captivated you, make you feel welcome and safe?”
Unconsciously, she reached out and grabbed his forearm. “Grey, you used to say there was magic here. It’s still here, it’s just become tarnished with age, smeared by too much wear and too little care.” She released her hold on him and moved away, the breeze moving her long hair back from her features, the sun creating fires in the dark strands. “We have dreams, Grey. All of us here on the boardwalk, and you hold them in your hands.”
He watched her with narrowed eyes, trying not to see the way the gentle wind molded her T-shirt against her firm, upthrust breasts, trying not to notice the length of her tanned, shapely legs beneath her shorts.
“Dreams are for kids,” he replied brusquely, tearing his gaze away from her and back to the water.
“That’s not true,” she protested. “Dreams are for everyone who has hope, including those here at Land’s End that don’t have money, or have physical handicaps or whatever. The one commodity they have in abundance is hope.” She reached out to grab his arm. “Grey, please don’t take that hope away from us. Give us a chance to tell you our dreams before you make the decision to destroy this place.”
Grey ran his hand through his hair, needing to think, but not knowing what to think. Her words reminded him of what this place had once meant to him. He moved away from her, again looking out to the water as if the answers were all there in the waves.
He also realized something else. Despite the fact that she’d betrayed him, married another and gone on with her life, he still wanted her. He wanted her with a passion that was mindless, careless and insane.
What he didn’t know was if this, too, was merely a lingering emotion from the past, a memory too powerful to dispel. Would making love to her now be the overwhelming experience he remembered it to be, or had he colored their union with sensations intensified through the haze of time?
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