Heart Bones(9)

It’s sad that it’s strange that I’ll have regular access to food.

I pop another piece of bread into my mouth and then turn around to get a look at the ferry. Robert H. Dedman is written on the side of the upper deck in big white letters.

A ferry named Dedman? That’s not comforting at all.

Several people have returned to the front of the upper deck now. The dolphins must have disappeared.

My eyes are pulled to a guy on the upper deck who is holding a camera like it means nothing to him. The strap isn’t even wrapped around his wrist. It’s just dangling, like he has replacement cameras at home if he were to drop his.

The camera is pointed right at me. At least it seems that way.

I glance behind me, but there’s nothing there, so I’m not sure what else he’d be taking a picture of.

When I look back at him, he’s still staring at me. Even with him being a level higher than me on this ferry, my defense mechanisms kick in immediately. They always do when I find someone attractive.

In a way, he reminds me of the guys back in Kentucky who come back to school after being out on the farm all summer in the assailing sun. Their skin is kissed with a tan, their hair full of light blond streaks from the sun’s rays.

I wonder what color his eyes are.

No. I don’t wonder. I don’t care. Attraction leads to trust leads to love, and those are things I want no part of. I’ve trained myself to turn off faster than I can be turned on. Like a switch, I find him unappealing as instantly as I found him appealing.

I can’t decipher what the look on his face means from down here. I don’t know how to read people my age very well because I’ve honestly never had many friends, but I definitely don’t know how to read the expressions of rich people my age.

I look down at my clothes. My wrinkled, faded sundress. My flip-flops that I’ve managed to keep intact for two years. The half slice of bread remaining in my hand.

I look back up at the guy with the camera that’s still pointed in my direction and suddenly feel embarrassed.

How long has he been taking pictures of me?

Did he take a picture of me stealing the slice of discarded bread? Did he photograph me eating it?

Is he planning on posting the pictures online in hopes they go viral like those heartless People of Walmart posts?

Trust and love and attraction and disappointment are just many of the things I’ve learned to protect myself from, but embarrassment is still one I’m working on, apparently. It envelops me in a wave of heat from head to toe.

I glance nervously around me, recognizing the mixture of people on this ferry. The vacationers in their Jeeps, wearing flip-flops and sunscreen. The business people still sitting in their cars in their business suits.

And then there’s me. The girl who can’t afford a car or a vacation.

I don’t belong on this ferry, transporting these fancy cars full of fancy people who hold cameras like they’re as cheap as a MoonPie.

I look back up at the guy with the camera and he’s still staring at me, probably wondering what I’m doing on this ferry with all his people while I wear my faded clothes and sport my split ends and dirty fingernails and nasty secrets.

I look in front of me and see a door that leads to an enclosed area of the ferry. I dart for the door and duck inside. There’s a bathroom to my immediate right, so I retreat into it and lock the door behind me.

I stare at myself in the mirror. My face is flushed and I don’t know if it’s from the embarrassment or from this intense Texas heat.

I pull the rubber band out of my hair and try to comb through the messy strands with my fingers.

I can’t believe I look like this and I’m about to meet my father’s new family for the first time. They’re probably the type of women who go to salons to get their hair and nails done, and to doctors to smooth out their imperfections. They’re probably well-spoken and smell like gardenia.

I’m pasty and sweaty and smell like a mixture of mildew and grease from a McDonald’s deep fryer.

I toss the rest of my bread in the bathroom trash can.

I stare back at the mirror, but all I see is the saddest version of myself. Maybe losing my mother last night is affecting me more than I want to admit. Maybe my decision to call my father was made in haste, because I don’t want to be here.

But I don’t want to be there, either.

Right now, it’s just hard to be.

Period.

I pull my hair back up, sigh, and push open the door to the bathroom. It’s a heavy door made of thick steel, so it slams when it shuts behind me. I’m not even two steps from the bathroom when I pause because someone pushes off the wall of the tiny corridor and blocks my way to the exit.

I find myself looking into the impenetrable eyes of the guy with the camera. He’s looking back at me like he knew I was in the bathroom and he’s here with a purpose.

Now that I’m much closer to him, I think I was wrong about him being my age. He may be a few years older than me. Or maybe being rich just makes you seem older. There’s an air of confidence that surrounds him, and I swear it smells like money.

I don’t even know this guy, but I already know I dislike him.

I dislike him as much as I dislike the rest of them. This guy thinks it’s okay to take pictures of a poor girl during a slightly vulnerable and embarrassing moment, all the while holding his camera like a careless douchebag.