Henry
My dad paid for an excursion out on the Gulf on a thirty-foot charter boat that we’re sharing with a captain and two crew members, plus four twentysomethings who’re whooping it up bachelor party–style.
We shove off at the ass crack of dawn. I have to forgo my run, but I’m trying not to be a downer because maybe this will be fun.
Dad’s pumped. As we motor away from shore, he bounds around the boat with a can of charter-provided Coors, toasting Josh, the groom-to-be, who’s vacationing from Jersey with his friends.
Ten minutes in, the bachelor party guys already worship Dad.
The crew, a freakishly tan brother-sister pair called Matthew and Marissa, do too.
He invites everyone onboard to Blitz Brews later.
He seems to collect people like the Pied Piper.
If I didn’t look so much like Davis Walker, I’d question my paternity.
The weather’s nice today, though it’s always nice in Sugar Bay.
The sky’s a vivid blue, and the gulf is calm, glittering in the sunlight.
I slather on sunscreen and listen as Matthew and Marissa explain about rods and reels.
I Googled gulf fishing last night, partly because I couldn’t sleep and partly because I didn’t want to look like a dumbass today, but it becomes clear pretty quick that we’re on a party boat that lets you leave with fish, not Deadliest Catch.
The crew’s doing all the work, but the sun’s relentless and I’m still roasting. Halfway through the morning, when Dad stops flirting with Marissa long enough to toss me a beer, I consider cracking it open.
I end up passing it to Todd, Josh’s best man, who’s on the bench beside me. He opens the can with a metallic pop. After a long pull, he states the obvious: “Dude. Your dad’s a trip.”
Davis is across the deck, shotgunning a beer. It’s, like, nine o’clock.
Todd jabs me with his tanning-oil-covered elbow. “You’re a lucky kid.”
I let out a disbelieving laugh, flipping my baseball hat from backward to forward so my face doesn’t end up twice baked. And so I don’t have to watch my father guzzle foam.
“Seriously,” Todd says. “I was twenty-four before my dad had a beer with me. Pretty sure yours would hold a funnel for you.”
I don’t want to talk about my dad or how much it bugs me that Todd’s right.
He points toward his friends, who’ve gathered around to egg Davis on. “Josh and me grew up on the same block. He’s the first of our crew to buy a girl a ring. You got yourself a girl?”
I think of Piper before I think of Whitney, which is fucked.
The boat dips over a wave. I feel removed, like I’m watching an alternate version of myself muddle through a conversation with this stranger. The disconnect is superior to being present, though. When I’m in my head, guilt gnaws at me.
“No,” I tell Todd. “No girl. Not anymore.”
“Sorry, kid,” he says, peering at me through water-spotted sunglasses. “What happened?”
He seems like a cool guy, though he’s got an outline of the state of New Jersey tattooed on his biceps, a dubious choice. “It ended,” I tell him. “Ran its course.”
He nods with authority. “Probably for the best. Have fun while you’ve got the chance.”
“Yeah, I’m not the best at having fun.”
He laughs, holding up the beer I handed him. “I sensed that about you.”
Have fun. Chill. Relax.
I’ve heard variations of don’t be such a stick in the mud more times than I can count.
From Ricky and Silas and other buddies back in Spokane.
From both of my parents and my grandma. From my pop too, when he was alive, which always gave me pause, considering how many personality traits I inherited from him.
God, Henry, loosen up, Whitney used to say.
We started going out last September, at the beginning of junior year.
I see now, thanks to the ass-kicking clarity of hindsight, that she was out of my league.
She reigns about twelve steps up the social ladder from where I sit comfortably as a varsity cross-country runner, National Honor Society member, and recreational skier.
Whitney’s a dancer and a debater, a butterfly of a girl who attracts attention just by being.
We’d known each other most our lives, but when we were matched as partners for a chemistry project, she took a liking to me.
Maybe it was because I was better at labs than she was.
Maybe it was because her mom, a nurse and a close friend of my mom’s, already approved of me.
Maybe she genuinely liked me. I was definitely into her.
By Halloween, she was blowing off her friends to hang out at my house, where we’d spend Mom’s long shifts making out.
For Christmas, she gave me candles she’d made herself.
They were poured into glass beakers and smelled like pine, and I loved that she’d put so much thought and time into my present.
But by the time New Year’s Eve rolled around, our romance was losing steam.
Whitney had grown tired of hanging out at my house.
She wanted to have more fun, drink more boxed wine, and party with the friends she’d been neglecting.
She wanted me to ditch studying and skip runs so we could do things my mom—obliviously smitten with my girlfriend—would’ve shit bricks over.
Classes ditched to ski at Schweitzer Mountain, nights in motel rooms neither of us could afford, beers guzzled in Whit’s friends’ dingy garages.
I should’ve ended it long before I did, but there was such familiarity between us. There was also the complication of our mothers, our relationship’s most enthusiastic cheerleaders.
I should’ve muted the bullshit and listened to my gut.
Todd rejoins Josh and the rest of the groomsmen, so I haul myself off the bench to help Marissa and Matthew maintain the lines. The fish are biting, and while I know enough to be sure I don’t give a shit about deep-sea fishing, I feel like I should participate so my dad gets his money’s worth.
Not that he’s paying attention. Josh and the groomsmen are shotgunning beers of their own now, making a mess all over the deck. Dad’s encouraging them with hoots and foot stomps. His top-siders are speckled with froth.
Jesus H. I’m onboard the SS Frat Party.
***
I drive home. Thanks to the huge lunch we had on the water, Dad has sobered up. Mostly. Still, he’s not into taking chances behind the wheel—an exception to his usual throw-caution-to-the-wind attitude that I respect.
“Let’s grill the fish this weekend,” he says as I guide the Ram away from the marina. We’ve got a cooler of them secured in the truck bed, gutted and cleaned by the crew. Not a bad deal, especially for Dad and the bachelors, who did jack-all when it came to reeling them in.
“I guess,” I say.
Dad turns in his seat, giving me a once-over. “What’s up, buddy?”
“Just tired.”
“But you had fun, right?”
I might’ve, if you hadn’t spent the whole time partying with strangers.
He looks so damn earnest. So hopeful. Telling him the truth would be like sending a kid’s balloon into the wind.
“Yeah,” I say. “It was cool.”
He grins. “You wouldn’t be so wiped if you hadn’t stayed out late with your new girl.”
I tighten my grip on the steering wheel. It’s the first time he’s brought up Piper, and of course he’s being patriarchal about it. “She’s not mine. We’re friends.”
He chuckles. “In my experience, friendships have a way of becoming more.”
Were he and Tati friends before they hooked up?
Of course he knows Piper’s sister. There’s one woman in all of Sugar Bay who I’ve got roundabout access to, one woman who might distract Davis long enough to let me enjoy a full night’s sleep and a morning run and a fucking breath, and he’s already bedded her.
We’re almost back to the Towers when he reaches into the glove box. I’m watching the road, so it isn’t until he chucks something small into my lap that I realize it’s a package of condoms.
“Have some fun,” he says. “But for Christ’s sake, be safe.”
I fire a glare in his direction.
Then I shut him out for the rest of the day.