Eyes Ever to the Sky (A Sci Fi Romance) (The Sky Trilogy) (5 page)

“Double swirl with sprinkles and a Kit Kat flurry. Large!” Fer yelled as she streaked by, two waffle cones in each hand.

Cece looked warily at the soft-serve machine, a clunky stainless steel contraption with three nozzles protruding from the front. The only tutorial Cece had received happened before they opened: Fer had flipped back her ponytail, placed her mouth under the spigot and pulled the vanilla handle. With the line extending into the blacktop, and the natives growing restless, there was no time for Fer to teach her. Cece took a waffle cone from the stack, held it tentatively under the spigot and pulled the lever. The vanilla ice cream snaked into the cone faster than she'd expected. She jerked her hand around in an attempted swirl, but the result was a lopsided vanilla mountain ready to crumble at any movement. 

Fer flew by and grabbed it out of Cece’s grip. “Good enough. Work on the Cherry dip, will ya?” Purple hair clung to Fer's forehead in sweaty strands.

“
Fer, I’m sorry. I’ll—”

“
Save the apologies,” Fer said, striding over to the window where a six-year-old stood on his tip-toes to peer in. She handed him the cone. Then she flicked her eyes back to Cece. “Cherry dip.
Pronto, mi amiga, por favor.
”

“
Right, right.” Cece grabbed a cone and swirled in vanilla, managing to keep it relatively symmetrical. The basin holding the red cherry liquid sat to the right of the soft serve machine. Cece flipped the cone upside down and dunked it in the red soup. She watched in anguish as all the ice cream slid out of the cone and bobbed at the bottom of the basin like a mangled beluga whale.

“
Whoa! Another one bites the dust,” said a voice behind her.

She whirled around. A slender boy in a Lizzy’s Ice Cream t-shirt stepped around her, whisked a cone off the rack, filled it with soft serve and dipped it in with one fluid motion. He handed the perfect cherry dip to Fer without taking his eyes off Cece.

“Don’t worry about it, man,” he said. A warm smile spread over his face. “My first day I accidentally unplugged the back freezer. Shoulda seen Lizzy flip her lid on that one.” He stuck out his hand. “Travis.”

The infamous Travis. Fer had described him as a burn-out, complete with hemp necklaces and rasta t-shirts, but with his warm smile and kind eyes, Cece quickly re-framed Travis. She could see the pothead signals: the stains on his fingers, the unwashed hair that hung past his ears, the bloodshot eyes. He had a scar on his chin and road rash on his elbow that suggested trick biking or skateboarding. His little soul-patch beard curled down his chin like a fuzzy strip of carpet. He was Shaggy from
Scooby-Doo
, yet nicer on the eyes.

She slipped her palm into his. “Cece. Short for Cecelia.”

He grasped her hand and broke into song. “
Oh Cecelia. You’re breaking my heart. You’re taking my confidence baby.
” He smiled and tossed the hair out of his hazel eyes.  

She smiled back. “Yeah. My mom sings it,
You're raking my yard. You're taking my condiments baby
.”

“
Rad,” Travis said, still smiling. Still holding Cece’s hand.

“
Where’s my G.D. Kit Kat flurry?” Fer yelled over her shoulder. She handed a stack of napkins to a frustrated mother with a crying baby on her hip.

Travis finally let go of Cece's hand. He flipped around, grabbed a Styrofoam cup from the stack and held it triumphantly to Fer. “On the double, my Fer-y friend.”

Cece went back to sweating and filling orders, but with Travis there to help, everything ran smoothly. Travis taught her the secret of the perfect swirl, how to scoop from the ice cream tubs without cross-contaminating flavors and how to sweet-talk the customers until they dropped their spare change into the “Tips Much Appreciated” jar. The young mothers flirted with Travis. The teenagers slapped him five through the window.

By three o'clock the long line had dwindled to a few stragglers slumped over the shaded picnic tables. Fer and Cece leaned hip to hip against the splattered counter. Cece lay her head on Fer's sweaty shoulder. “For a girl who slept through most of your classes last semester, you sure worked your ass off.”

Fer flicked a sprinkle off Cece's arm and shrugged. “I've found my one true calling,” she nodded her head to the flurry machine, “flurry engineer.” She took a Kit Kat and snapped it off in her mouth.

Travis sauntered over, sweat beading under his shaggy bangs, but he smiled easily. “Ferina, how we doin on ye ol supplies?”

Fer nodded to a pad of paper on the counter beside her. “I got an inventory list going. When you talk to Lizzy, tell her not to be such a cheap ass with maraschino cherries. And no more generic Andes Mints for Christ's sake.”

Travis scanned the list, nodding. Then he lifted his eyes to Cece. “How's the first day, young padawan? Have you harnessed the force?” He picked up a cone and waved it around like a light saber.

Cece cracked a smile. “I think I did more harm than good. I'll do better tomorrow.”

Travis waved a dismissive hand. “Psha, don't even sweat it. Plus, you still have the after-dinner rush to get your sea legs.”

Cece was about to respond when the back door banged open. She could feel the mood in the small, hot room change.

“
Michelle,” Fer whispered in her ear. “Wicked Witch of the West.”

Fer was about to say more when a girl blew in. Her bleached-blond hair, coming in brown at the roots, framed a face that might've been pretty if it wasn't locked in a permanent frown. She'd knotted her Lizzy’s t-shirt tightly in the back so it hugged every curve of her too-thin body. Diamond earrings flashed from her ears and her purse was clearly designer. Cece didn't know Michelle, being a grade below her, but she'd had plenty of run-ins with her type: the I'm-too-good-for-trailer-trash-like-you type.

“You're late, Michelle,” Fer said, crossing her arms and frowning. “You know how Lizzy feels about—”

“
Oh, you got promoted, Fer? You're the boss now?” Michelle flashed white teeth in a smile that didn't meet her eyes. She tilted her head to the side and waited for a response. Fer just glowered. Michelle turned and placed a hand on Travis's shoulder. “Am I late, Travis?” She batted long mascaraed lashes.

Travis blinked. “I...uh...”

Michelle didn't wait for an answer. Instead she grabbed a stool, plopped down on it and pulled out her cellphone. Fer was still glowering. Cece was sure that if this scene had happened in the trailer park, Michelle would be on the ground by now, with Fer's sneaker in her teeth.

“
Who's this?” Michelle asked, flicking her eyes up from her phone just long enough to glance at Cece.

Fer puffed her chest up. “She's Cece and if you mess with her, I'll rip that fake weave out your head.”

“Relax, Mike Tyson,” Michelle said, her eyes back on her phone. She extended a limp hand to Cece, still not looking at her.

Cece eyed it suspiciously. Finally, Michelle looked up and thrust her hand out again. Cece put her palm in Michelle's. “Nice to meet you,” Cece said flatly.

“Nice to meet you, Cece.” Michelle smiled with straight white teeth. “Now if you'll excuse me,” she said, taking a makeup bag from her expensive purse, “I have to use the ladies' room.”

As Michelle rounded the corner, Cece saw her wipe off the hand she’d just shaken.

Fer turned and gripped the counter with white knuckles. “I can't stand that ho-bag. She thinks she so much better than us because her daddy gives blow jobs to congressmen.”

Travis scooted back to the window all too eager to take the next order.

“Who is she?” Cece asked, leaning in to Fer.

Fer glared down the hall where Michelle had disappeared. “Her dad's Shane McGrady. He's the hot-shot county prosecutor. But, here's the thing,” she leaned closer, whispering, “she ain't as rich as she'd like you to believe.” Fer raised her eyebrows, smirking. “They live over in Sunset Hills.”

Sunset Hills was only two streets from the trailer park and not much nicer: little one-garage ranches with weedy lawns and cars parked on blocks.

“
If her daddy's such a hot-shot, why do they live in that dump?” Cece scooped sprinkles from the counter into her cupped palm. 

“
Not sure, but here's what I heard. Old Shane's got himself a major drinking problem. Chugs his checks each week.” Fer mimed lifting a glass to her lips. “And Michelle's ma left him over it. Now they live in a crappy two-bedroom, but he still drives his Beemer and Michelle tries to keep up appearances. She's real pissed he made her get a job here.”

Cece was about to respond when her cellphone rang from her pocket. Was it Mama? Immediately her heart began to race.

A twelve-year-old boy was peering up at the laminated menu stuck to the side of the order window. “Go ahead,” Fer said, nodding toward Cece’s phone. “I'll take this order.”

Cece nodded, flipping her phone open. The cracked screen showed her an unknown number with an out of town area code.

“Hello?”

“
Cecelia Acha?” an unfamiliar male voice asked.

“
Yeah?” She stepped toward the back and put a finger in her ear to drown out the background noise.

“
My name's Ben.” He paused. “My mom is your Aunt Beatriz.”

Cece felt a cold sweat break out across her back. “She is?”

“Yeah.” His voice was tense, almost angry. “Your call last night really messed her up. She's been crying all night.”

“
I...I'm sorry. I just... My mama needs help.”

He snorted into the phone. “You're mom has some nerve asking for help after what she did.”

“What did she do that—”

“
Look. Don't call here again. We don't want all that drama back in their lives.”

“
Wait, I—”

He hung up.

Cece stared at the phone, feeling slapped. After a moment she pulled out the slip of paper with the family names on it and slowly penned the word Ben below Aunt Beatriz. Then she ran her pen through it, crossing it out. She had gained and lost a cousin in a matter of minutes.

Mama had a lot of explaining to do.

CHAPTER SEVEN
— HUGH

Tuesday 8:48 p.m.

Hugh adjusted the bag of fertilizer under his head for the hundredth time and closed his eyes. The nine-by-six foot shed smelled of weed killer, cedar chips and potting soil. The wood floor, baked by the heat of the day, warmed his butt through his spandex running shorts. He lifted his eyes to the distant humming in the corner. He squinted, trying to make out the dark shapes buzzing around the roof peak. Bees. If he didn't bug them, they'd leave him alone, right?

He dug his head into the fertilizer bag and tried to relax. The warm enclosed feeling of having four walls around him was calming. The vast openness of the woods was spooky. An hour before he'd found this shed something had jumped out of the shadows and he’d screamed like a little girl. It took him a good minute to get into his head that the monster was a squirrel and he was being a world-class pansy.

It was the
thing
that haunted him. The thing with red reptilian eyes that had followed him here. In the dark he could see those eyes — large, veined and slitted like a python's. Hugh shivered, despite the heat. He swore he'd heard footsteps behind him for miles after he'd torn away from the crater, but he'd seen no sign. No red eyes lurking in the forest shadows. No dripping fangs. Had there been fangs? He wasn’t sure, but his mind produced them anyway: six-inch fangs dripping blood.

Why was it following him? Why was it here?

A coil of hose knotted under his back and he wiggled until he could dig it out. All day he’d tried to keep his spirits up, but he was alone, hungry and clothed in women's jogging gear. He had no idea who he was and he couldn't trust anyone. He tightened his arms around himself. Tomorrow, if his memory hadn’t returned, he’d find someone and ask for help, no matter how scared he was. Or, maybe he'd remember. God, let him remember.

He tried again for the memory, closing his eyes. This time he found himself at the giant silo's base, the curving wall rising up in front of him. The long grass swayed in the breeze. He tried to look around, but it was as if his head was locked in place. All he could do was stare at the pitted gray silo. He put his palms to the cool metal, looking for an opening, a door, anything. And above someone was calling him.

In the shed his foot hit something and he startled, pulling out of the vision.  He opened his eyes to see a ceramic pot teeter and smash. He looked up at the shed doors, anxiety flooding him. The sound would be muffled by the plywood, but the house was only twenty feet away. The windows had been dark when he’d slunk by and let himself in, but someone could be home now. He shifted his fertilizer pillow, inhaled its scent of seed and chemical with deep breaths. His heart wouldn’t slow.

Footsteps clomped up the shed ramp outside. The door latch scraped open. Hugh snapped upright. He watched in horror as the gap between the doors widened. Someone was opening the shed.