Larissa Learns to Breathe

LARISSA LEARNS TO BREATHE

RUBY LASKA

Copyright © 2015 by Ruby Laska.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Publisher's Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author's imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

Larissa Learns to Breathe / Ruby Laska. – 1st ed.

ISBN 978-1-940501-04-8

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Other books by Ruby Laska

Excerpt of
Black Gold

About the Author

CHAPTER ONE

She should have brought the singing turkey.

Larissa Lawson stood at the edge of a crumbling asphalt parking lot, next to a fairly intimidating woman who didn't seem to like her very much, at least not today, and considered the fact that there had never been a more un-thanksgiving-like Thanksgiving week than this one. Sure, it was only Tuesday. Sure, there were still two more days in which the tides of holiday cheer might turn. But right now, she could really use something—anything—to remind her that it was the season to give thanks.

The singing turkey had been a gift from a client—a
guilt
gift, for firing Larissa. Sarah had actually been one of Larissa's best clients, one of the last ones she'd thought would abandon her. To be fair, Sarah had been the
second
-to-last to fire her, but then again, it was Amelia who had been the very last and that was only because her dog had died, so she didn't really count.

Sarah was a lovely person, a pediatric dentist famous on the Upper East Side for her patience with children, and she'd hugged Larissa after firing her and then given her the singing turkey, which was made out of soft fake fur with a tiny speaker sewn into its middle.

“When your dog chews on it, it goes like this,” Sarah had explained, giving the thing a squeeze, which caused it to gobble a tune. Then she'd promised to write a glowing recommendation and said she hoped they could remain friends and asked for Larissa's address so she could send a Christmas card. Anything, it seemed, but allowing Larissa continue to walk her corgi, Ginger, who had begun to cringe and pee a little every time Larissa came to the apartment to get her.

Larissa didn't mean to scare the dogs she was hired to walk. It was just that she was a little…uncomfortable around them. She'd never had a dog of her own—or a pet of any kind, really—not even a turtle. She grew up in a third floor walkup on the upper West Side, where her philosophy-professor parents kept house indifferently, lavishing all of their attention on their books and papers and only child. Larissa was well loved, but sometimes her parents forgot to eat and they often forgot to clean, and a pet would have languished from a lack of attention. The only creatures that Larissa had for company were the mice who burrowed behind the walls.

Still, there had been dogs in her building. All through her childhood, Larissa had watched them come and go with fascination and more than a little longing. Then came college and business school and six exhausting years at Torrence Capital, when she barely had time to shower, much less forge a relationship, even with a pet.

But it didn't escape her notice that lots and lots of people loved dogs, even city dwellers, and when Larissa lost her job with Torrence Capital during the recession, her “transition counselor” had advised her to seek a need, and fill it. That very day, she'd seen a “Wanted: Dog Walker” sign in the Laundromat, and her new business had been born.

Within a week she'd signed up six clients. Another thirteen by the end of the month, all delighted to pay for her services. Naturally, all of her clients assumed that she had a dog of her own. Who would hire a dog walker who didn't love dogs, after all? But the sad truth was that when Larissa came home to her peaceful apartment—tiny, barely furnished, but peaceful—at the end of the day, she was so grateful for the silence that she could cry. Actually, a lot of the time she
did
cry, though that may have something to do with the bills piling up and the phone that hadn't rung much since she was laid off.

She blinked hard, willing the memories of all that failure to recede into the depths of her heart, where they belonged, and turned to her traveling companion. “Please tell me that's not the boat, Amelia.”

“It's been a strange day,” Amelia murmured, not taking her eye off the rickety skiff making its unhurried way toward them, its driver—if that's what one called the person rowing—seemingly indifferent to the fact that he was half an hour late.

“It's been a strange
week
.”

“You can say that again.”

Finally, the skiff approached the dock, an assemblage of loose boards that was at least as decrepit as the boat, which was why neither woman had dared walk out on it. But the figure in the boat—too far away to make out his facial features, but Larissa had to admit that he did look remarkably, er,
fit
with that muscular bare chest and biceps that rippled when he waved—hollered out “Are you the Cupid girls? Can you come out to the end of the dock so I don't have to beach this thing?”

“I'm hardly a
girl
,” Amelia huffed. At twenty-nine, Larissa was more than twenty years younger than her companion, but she too bristled at the word. She hadn't muscled her way up the corporate ladder at Torrence by being a “girl.”

They picked up their suitcases and made their way carefully along the dock. Amelia was fairly steady in her Italian loafers, but Larissa had worn her best I-mean-business heels from back when she used height to try to intimidate her colleagues, and it was hard to keep her footing on the rough-hewn wood. After nearly falling twice, she took off the heels and went the rest of the way barefoot, reaching the end of the dock with at least two splinters embedded in her skin.

“Please don't tell me the rest of Palmetto Island is as poorly maintained as this…watercraft,” Amelia huffed.

After tying the boat up, the man jumped up onto the dock with the grace of a cat. He pushed back his longish brown hair and gave them a dazzling grin. The truth was that
he
looked as untended as his boat—hair that was about two months overdue for a cut, ancient board shorts that were fraying at the hems, flip-flops worn almost through their rubber soles—but in all other respects he could serve as a very compelling advertisement for the resort that was their destination.

“I'm Tommy,” he said amiably, holding out a hand. “Tommy Reid. And it's called Cupid Key, actually.”

“Amelia Drake.”

Larissa winced; Amelia could be terrifying when she was in the mood. You'd never know that her privileged childhood, Ivy League education, and society wedding were all ancient history, and that since her husband's death two years ago, she had sunk nearly as low as Larissa herself. “And the name of the resort is the first thing I intend to change. The manor is already called Palmetto Manor, which is a perfectly dignified name. No need to make it sound like we're running some squalid little swingers' club.”

If Tommy minded that Amelia ignored his outstretched hand, he didn't let on. “Well, I guess you can take that up with Rafe,” he said. “I don't much care what they call it, as long as they keep paying me.”

He moved past Amelia and shook Larissa's hand. “And you are?”

“Larissa Lawson.” She cleared her throat, aware that she sounded only slightly less uptight than Amelia. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. And you are the, um, ferry captain?”

Tommy threw back his head and laughed, then picked up the women's suitcases as though they weighed mere ounces and threw them into the back of the boat. “Among other things. Right now I'm helping out with construction. Come opening day I think my title's something like Director of Beachside Recreation. Basically I'm your glorified and overpaid bungalow boy.”

He had the temerity to wink at her, but before Larissa could glare at him he was back in the boat, standing gracefully on the seat in front. “Careful when you get in, ladies, and keep your weight to the center.”

“Are we meant to sit on…that bare wood?” Amelia asked, pointing at the boards serving as bench seats, which were liberally doused in gull droppings. A Dorito bag was anchored to one of the seats with a beer bottle.

“Unless you want to stand,” Tommy said. “There's a towel back there you can sit on if you want.”

Amelia sighed and accepted his hand. She stepped over the first couple of seats and settled herself on the back one after draping the towel over it. Tommy offered Larissa his hand next. His grip was warm and comforting and as she stepped gingerly into the boat, she was aware of the heat he generated, of the salty, earthy, suntan-lotiony smell of him. And those faded-denim blue eyes. And that smile, with those incredibly white, bright teeth—

“Hey,” Tommy said in alarm, “stay to the—”

But it was too late. Larissa—who did not care for water and had been in exactly one boat in her life, a gondola on the lake in Central Park—planted her foot near the edge of the boat, felt it sink alarmingly into the water, teetered for a second—

And fell.

Tommy held onto her hand as long as he could, but when her bare feet struck cool water, she shrieked so loudly that he let go.

This can't be happening
, she thought as the water closed over her and she opened her eyes to see what her watery grave would look like, wishing she had swallowed her pride and admitted that she couldn't swim. Not that it would have made any difference, of course, because there hadn't been a single life preserver on the boat, which proved what Larissa had suspected all along, which was that the entire thing—the mysterious invitation to the island, the job offer, the airline tickets, the cash—were part of some elaborate scam that would leave her either divested of what was left of her savings, or dead, or both.

Larissa was underwater long enough to observe that it was surprisingly
green
down there, and that the fish swimming by weren't nearly as cute as the ones in Finding Nemo, when her feet touched bottom. Sputtering and splashing, she managed to stand up on the slimy ocean floor, most of her shoulders above water. “I can't swim,” she sputtered, blinking away the stinging, salty water. “I've never been in a boat.”

Tommy was crouched in the boat, reaching out his hand to her and trying not to laugh. “You might have thought to tell me that before you went in,” he said. “Well, I guess this'll save you doing laundry, anyway.”

She stared at him in dismay, water dripping into her eyes. “Are you serious?”

“Sure. They don't have the laundry facilities finished yet, and it's a pain to get to the Laundromat on Key Grande, so some of us have been doing our wash in the cove. Leaves your drawers a little stiff, but—”

“
This
,” Larissa said, plucking her blouse away from the skin to which it had plastered itself, blushing when she saw that her bra was as visible as if she was wearing plastic wrap, “is
silk
. My skirt is
tropical wool
. They are
dry clean only
.”