House of Smoke by JF Freedman

pushes through the throng towards her.
    “Kate, hi. What’re you drinking?” he asks, feigning good-naturedness. The drink in his hand is not the first one.
    “Club soda,” she answers. Go away, please. Just go away.
    “Haven’t seen you lately,” he informs her, his voice lawyerish with insinuation.
    “I’ve been pretty busy.”
    “I called a few times. Left messages on your service.”
    She kind of shrugs. Do you need me to draw you a picture?
    He gulps from his drinks. As casually as he can: “Who are you with, Kate? I don’t mean—you know what I mean—now. This evening. You here with anyone?”
    “Just myself.” He’s beginning to piss her off.
    “Why don’t we have dinner? I’m not with anyone, either—no one I can’t lose,” he throws in, an attempt to flatter her.
    “I can’t,” she says, the lying coming easy, not even the slightest undercurrent of remorse, “I’m meeting up with somebody. Later, in a little while. Soon.”
    “Well.” He’s at a loss. “I thought we had fun together. …” He tails off.
    “We did. Don’t make more of it than it was.”
    “We’ve been dating half the summer,” he protests, his voice gathering heat.
    “I’m not dating anyone, Garrison. Don’t take it personally.”
    “Just like that? You break off a relationship just like that?”
    “I don’t want a relationship, so yes. Besides, what we had was not a relationship.”
    Saying that, she drains her drink, sets it on a waitress’s passing tray, and pushes past him, out onto the sidewalk.
    She motors on down the street in the direction of Kris & Jerry’s Bar, where she might run into one of the secretaries she knows from the courthouse. There’s still plenty of light out. Men like Garrison don’t set foot in bars like Kris & Jerry’s. She’ll have one margarita, to celebrate the end of Fiesta.
    That’s bullshit. The drink is to calm her nerves, Barbara Stanwyck time from the classic movie channel. Might as well fire up a Virginia Slims while she’s at it, go whole hog. Got a light, big boy? She’ll stick to beer. A woman’s drink for a real woman.
    “That’s it, up ahead,” Frank tells Rusty, pointing. “Home sweet home.”
    It’s not your home, it’s mine, Laura thinks, but she holds the thought to herself. The trip is over now, she can bottle her resentment for the fifteen minutes it’s going to take to dock and tie up. Holding on to a line, the ocean spray stinging her face, she watches the coast come at them, the old dock and the beach and the dense growth leading up the cliff. Her family’s property, to the horizon and beyond.
    “What time’ve you got?” Rusty asks Frank, squinting against the low-lying sun as he peers down into the murky water lapping at the dock, which he’s never seen before. He’s taken the helm from the other guy, he’ll bring it in himself; this is an expensive vessel they’re sailing, and their cargo’s even more expensive.
    “Quarter after seven.”
    “After we tie up we’ll have to sit tight,” Rusty informs him in a low voice, making sure Laura’s out of earshot. He holds three fingers up between the sun and the horizon. “An hour at least.”
    “This is private property, man,” Frank protests heatedly. “There isn’t anyone around for miles. We’ve got a full-time security service, we don’t even allow surfers.”
    “That’s not a problem?” Rusty queries. “The security?” He’s been reassured several times, from the opening conversations about this enterprise, but this is explosive shit they’re sitting on.
    “I’ve told you: no,” Frank answers, exasperated. “I gave them all the day off, ordered them to go into town and party. Not a soul will be around—they don’t question the boss’s orders.”
    Laura would grind her teeth if she heard him talking like this, although technically they do work for him, because he works for her parents.
    Actually, the real reason she never confronts him on issues like this is