8. Dominic
EIGHT
Dominic
“Handle it, Doug,” I tell the CEO of my manufacturing company through my hangover. “This is your problem, under your jurisdiction.” I’m trying to step back from this issue I’m having with the same company from Sunday in an attempt to relinquish control and delegate more effectively. Especially right now, because I have a Pirate Plunder to attend. Also because I’m hungover. “What am I paying you for?” I add in. “Don’t contact me about this until tomorrow morning. And when you do, make sure you’ve come up with a boatload of solutions.” I hang up the phone, cringing at coded pirate pun.
I throw on my bathing suit, start collecting items to pack. Sunscreen (the cream kind), towels for me and Frankie, sweatshirts, water bottles, snacks, first aid kit. I look at the pile, briefly considering bringing the small rolling suitcase I have before realizing I absolutely cannot look like the World’s Biggest Pirate Weenie at the Plunder. Especially after my unhinged sharing of pathetic relationship history. Regardless of any physical or metaphorical line drawn in the sand.
Because it’s been a long fucking time, and I truly believe that further confirmation of Lina’s attraction to me is what will keep me going through all the parenting bullshit. Hopefully, if I milk it long enough, the ego boost will last me all the way through to Frankie’s teenage years. It’s okay, Dom , I’ll tell myself when Frankie screams at me for enforcing a curfew. You may be Sir Better Safe Than Sorry and Prince Over-Prepared, but at least someone thought you were ‘hot as fuck’ that one summer .
However, I will certainly not go overboard. It will not let it go to my head. I am consciously avoiding the many little voices, the one that is saying you deserve this, you can balance this , the ones saying Lina doesn’t seem untrustworthy and plenty of single parents date or have sex and go on to lead happy, functional lives . I focus on the reasonable, rational, Sir Better Safe than Sorry voice that reminds me of what happened the last time I fucked around (I found out).
I am steering clear of the voice of my hypothalamus, the part of my brain wondering what color Lina’s nipples are under that tiny bikini, the part of my brain currently screaming at my body to fuck Lina into the sand after spending several drunken hours trapped in a small space next to her half naked body.
Sighing, I throw everything into a tote and walk down to the main house.
Where everyone is wearing an eye patch.
“Argh, matey,” Frankie screams, inexplicably sweaty and wearing a ring of purple marker around her mouth. I don’t ask.
“Do I get an eye patch? I want an eye patch.”
“Of course you get an eye patch,” Lina says, handing one to me.
I pull it on. It’s really soft. “Where does one even buy seven eye patches in Westerly, Rhode Island?”
Six different faces look at me with varying levels of disgust.
“We all teach or have taught elementary school, Dom. You really think we went out and bought these eye patches?” Georgia is genuinely horrified, saying bought like one would say flayed alive or decapitated .
“Shiver me timbers,” my daughter says sadly.
“We made them out of stuff we found around the house,” Lina tells me gently.
“Sorry.”
Lina looks at me, eyes sparkling. “You really look like a pirate.” She doesn’t say what I know she’s probably thinking, like plunder my booty , or swab my yo ho ho , or something.
“Why do I really look like a pirate?” I ask, baiting her, looking to add more fodder to my ego for when Frankie starts dating.
Lina gestures down my body. “The hair. The tattoos.”
“Swarthy,” Tita Gloria adds on.
I pause, thinking. “That might be considered racist terminology, Tita.”
She shrugs. “Sorry,” she says unapologetically. “Pirates spent a lot of time in the sun. Like our ancestors did. Pirates and Filipinos are both brown and proud. Let’s re-appropriate the word.”
“Aye aye,” Oliver chimes in.
“ Arrr we ready to set sail?” I ask.
“Gangplank’s up,” Tito Ben responds.
We all walk to out to our cars, feet crunching in the gravel of the driveway. Tita Gloria and Tita Ben head for Oliver and Georgia’s rental, so Lina and Frankie walk over to mine.
“Fancy,” Lina says about our car. “Where do you charge it in Fort Greene?”
I mumble my answer, so as not to sound like a douche. “We have a spot in a private lot with an electric charger.”
“Daddy says it costs a small mortgage ( mor-jig ),” my daughter very helpfully chimes in.
Lina looks at me with confused horny eyes. My hypothalamus wants me to scream I’m rich, too! at her, but that’s just too much.
We get in the car, and Sir Better Safe than Sorry makes sure everyone is buckled in before pulling out of the driveway.
“I have no idea what to expect when we get there,” Lina says. “This is such a niche thing. I’m kind of excited.”
“It looks nutso,” Frankie tells her. “There were sea monsters in the water and all the paddle boards were decorated like pirate ships and there was buried treasure and maps,” she tells us, all in one breath.
“And it’s hot out,” I add on. “Can you please have some water and hydrate before we spend the next few hours running and swimming around?”
I hear four eyes roll in the silence of the car.
“And start applying sunscreen, please. So it’ll absorb by the time we get there,” I say, ignoring them.
We drive for a few minutes, then start approaching what the GPS claims is Our Destination. The only thing indicating a Pirate Plunder is a small A-frame sidewalk sign with a crudely drawn skull and crossbones, which bodes really well. We pull into a dusty lot.
We all pile out of the car and I lather an annoyed and bouncing Frankie up with sunscreen because she obviously didn’t do it, while Lina tries to distract her with historical facts about the actual pirate Blackbeard. We learn that to scare his enemies, he would stick matches into his giant beard and light them because they would burn slowly and give off lots of smoke.
Lina and I simultaneously clock the exact moment Frankie starts to Get Ideas, so the Blackbeard lesson quickly turns into a fire safety lesson and a whole bunch of reminders.
“Tharr she blows,” she screams, slippery body wrenching away from mine and running towards the beach after I finally finish. We join a handful of other families with young kids on the walk down.
We approach an acne-ridden teenager perched on a stool, wearing a pirate hat, trying his hardest to disappear or, at the very least, to fold into himself. Parents are standing around the very empty beach with looks on their faces ranging from confused to annoyed to outraged. Beyond them, the inlet seems like a wide, shallow river, stretching maybe five hundred feet across before reaching the land on the other side. There are several paddle boards tied together in the water with skulls painted on them, much like the sign. There are maybe three or four inflatable neon-colored things sporadically placed in the water.
“Hey, man.” I decide to go with the gentle giant approaching a timid kitten approach. “What’s going on?”
“Welcome to Pirate Plunder,” he says.
“Thanks,” I say, with a huge smile. “We’re really excited.” I motion to Frankie, who has already made two friends and is explaining how to light beards on fire to look scary.
He shrugs.
I give him a moment.
He gives me nothing.
“So…”
“When do you plan on getting started?” Tita Gloria asks impatiently.
He shrugs again, using only one shoulder this time. “You can go ahead.”
“Huh?” Oliver says.
Frankie comes back to me and takes my hand.
The pimply teen lets out a sigh containing way more air than it looks like his scrawny body can hold. “My dad is sick. He usually runs these things. He sent me to cover for him today. I don’t know what to do, so I told everyone to just go for it.”
Frankie is currently doing the thing where she is gripping my hand for dear life and fully leaning into my body, indicating that she is sad, upset, anxious, or all of the above. Fuck .
“Well, what kind of activities do we have available to us?” I ask him, very kindly.
He waves towards the paddle boards floating close to shore. “Those are pirate ships,” he says, then he waves to the three neon spiky tentacled things further back. “And there are sea monsters in the ocean.”
I blink. “Lifeguard?”
He shrugs again, and I want to cut off his shoulders. I don’t think I’m mentally prepared for a teenaged Frankie. “The water is less than waist deep in the entire inlet.”
“My waist or my five-year-old daughter’s waist?”
He looks at me, then looks at Frankie. “Her waist, probably. You’re tall.”
I scrub my face. “Is there treasure?!” I implore.
“Oh,” he says. “I think I left that in my car. I can get it.”
I stare at him, unbelieving.
I look down at Frankie, who is seemingly trying to be absorbed into my body, whose little eyebrows are furrowed.
The next person I make eye contact with is Lina, of all people. She is already looking at me with what I assume is the same look of alarm and indignation currently printed all over my face.
Something changes in her eyes when she looks down at Frankie.
And then, something really cool unfolds.
Lina looks to Oliver, her former commander-in-chief at PS 2. Together, they scan the beach and the water, then look at one another again.
Ollie raises an eyebrow.
With that one gesture, an entire crisis management plan is communicated between them, born out of years of running and maintaining the programming, operations, strategy, and safety of a building full of approximately one hundred adults and nine hundred children together. She nods once, the commander understanding her duties, and they move into action.
“Dom, Georgia, and I will take the water contingency,” she announces. “You guys take the land contingency,” she tells Oliver and his parents.
I nod enthusiastically as if I totally know what she is talking about.
Oliver and his parents move to gang up on the teenager. I overhear Oliver telling the kid to get him the treasure chest, a notebook full of blank paper, and a “writing utensil.”
Georgia, one of Lina’s current soldiers at PS 2, already somehow understands the assignment and wades into the water to drag the attached paddle boards onto land to begin untangling and untying them. Lina claps her hands and gets everyone’s attention, which includes maybe ten other families.
“Ahoy there, mateys,” she shouts between cupped hands.
Frankie’s head perks up.
“We are about to set sail on our adventure on the high seas! Before we set off, we’re going to need two other pirate parent volunteers aside from Dom. Anyone?”
Two dads raise their hands and step forward. She gestures us towards her for a huddle.
“Okay. I’m gonna have each of the kids take a paddle board and then have them do an obstacle course through the water. You’ll need to put on your best sea monster act. I’m going to tell them to try to get past you—you can try to flip them, but please be gentle. Please mind their size. We don’t want any injuries. Once they return to land, they’ll be able to get a map from Oliver over there,” she points to where Oliver and his parents are looking around the beach and drawing on pieces of paper, “and find the treasure. Any questions?”
I have several actually, like what the fuck? and how are you so good at this? and how did you come up with this so fast? and perhaps do you think we could have sex without it being detrimental to my relationship with my daughter? but I shake my head, indicating I have no questions instead.
“Maybe we should diversify our monsters. I’m gonna go with a kraken,” I tell the other dads.
“Is there really any other kind of sea monster?” one of them responds.
We all think.
“What’s a leviathan?” the other one asks semi-rhetorically.
“Is that pirate or biblical?” I ask.
“Does it matter?”
“I think that one’s more serpentine, so it could be harder to pull off,” Lina offers.
“I’ll be a siren,” one decides. “I’ll just sing Cannonball at the top of my lungs.”
“Is that a widely regarded pirate song?”
“It’s a Miley song.”
“Isn’t that Wrecking Ball ?”
It’s clear we are all the fathers of little girls.
“Maybe you should stick to sea shanties,” Lina finally says, grinning at us, and it’s clear that she loves this shit, and I’ve gotta say it’s contagious. “Awesome. Showtime.” She strides back towards the group of kids and parents with another “Ahoy!”
I throw my shirt in the sand and wade into the water. It’s up to my thighs at most, so I think the kids will be okay without a lifeguard. There are more adults than kids who will be in the water anyway.
I get into position a few dozen feet from the shore, hearing Lina go over the adventure with the families. I feel the combined energy, the excitement of all those kids, especially when Lina starts leading them through a sea shanty I vaguely recognize. It travels through the water and lights me up with Big Tentacle Energy. I’m ready to take on these pirates.
Lina has each kid riding on a paddle board like it’s a ship and all the adults pushing them through the water. It’s a good strategy that forces parents to participate, to hang out with their kids rather than sitting on the shore on their phones. Lina’s paired herself up with Frankie, and they’re the first to approach my wrath. I try to focus all my energy and attention on my giggling daughter and not on the way Lina’s perfect tits are bouncing around in her bikini top.
I sit on the ocean floor and try my best to imitate one of those wacky inflatable tube men with the waving arms.
I don my most maniacal grin.
Frankie preemptively starts screaming.
I dive under the water.
I somehow crash into Lina’s legs. I wrap my arms around her thighs (not an excuse to touch her legs, thank you very much) and yank. She topples over, freeing me to flip Frankie off her board.
I surface to scream-laughing at unnatural decibels.
I take half a second to appreciate a soaking wet Lina in a clearly unlined bikini top and another half a second to appreciate a hysterical Frankie before I move onto my next target.
I can’t stop laughing.
* * *
“Thank you for that,” I tell our knees later. Mine and Lina’s are currently touching as we eat ice cream and sit and dry off on a towel. Neither of us makes any effort to move them. I have to tell our knees and not her face because she is currently eating a popsicle. I have a feeling she chose a popsicle on purpose.
To add to her magic today, Lina somehow got the teen to contact a local ice cream truck, and the ice cream man sped here with the promise of thirty hot and hungry people.
“For what?” she asks.
We watch Frankie as she splashes around with her new friends, regaling one another with fantastical pirate stories.
“For the whole day. Putting together a Pirate Plunder in under ten minutes. Getting so into it. Partnering with my daughter. Making her happy. Finding an ice cream truck in the middle of nowhere and getting it here.” Being gorgeous. Making me get drunk in the middle of a workday and have a blast. Still flirting with me even if a metaphorical line was drawn.
She shrugs. “It was nothing. I do this kind of shit every day. I could do it in my sleep. I love it.”
“Well, thank you.”
Lina places her pinky on top of where mine rests on the blanket, pressing down once. “You’re an amazing father. She’s lucky to have you.”
I feel my face get flushed, but I eat up all this positive reinforcement. I gobble it down.
Neither of us move our hands.
* * *
I eye her through the glass of the evil sliding door that leads out to the patio, our patio, wondering if it’s a good idea for me to go out there. She’s sitting quietly, reclined in the single lounge chair, watching the ocean and illuminated by the light of the moon. I have this unsettling urge to get to know her, to dig deep, to find out what makes her tick. It’s just a glass of wine, right? There’s only half a bottle left, anyway. We finished the rest yesterday.
As if she can hear me arguing with myself, she turns and sees me standing in the kitchen and watching her with the intensity of a deranged stalker. She smiles anyway and gestures me over.
I pour two glasses of wine and walk out.
“Frankie go down okay?” she asks me, and I can’t explain the feeling of satisfaction that flows through me at this first question. I hand her the glass and take a seat on the ground next to the railing, putting my knees between the slats and dangling my legs over the edge.
“Yeah. She usually does.”
We sit in companionable silence, listening to the waves crash onto the shore.
“What are you thinking about?” I finally blurt out.
She smiles, somehow radiant in the darkness. “A few things,” she starts. “How much fun I had today. How much fun I’ve had the last few days.”
I take a sip of my wine.
“I’ve been working a little bit, but other than that…” She exhales. “It feels really good. I haven’t done things for myself in forever.”
“I get it.”
“My mom, the school… Mike.” Her lip curls up at the last bit. “All my focus has been on them.”
A twisted part of me wants to hear Lina listing all the reasons I’m better than her ex again (to get me through another teenaged Frankie crisis). I’d also like to even out the current standing imbalance of unhinged over-sharing, so I ask, “You mentioned him a few days ago. He didn’t do laundry?” I’m the fucking laundry king , I want to add on. Separate lights and darks, air dry delicates, bleach, softener, the whole nine yards.
She chuckles weakly. “Among other things. I made his fucking doctor’s appointments for him. Let him smoke in my house.”
I wince appropriately.
“Right? I would even vacuum the ash he scattered all over the rug. I would do all the cooking and cleaning. Frankie is more independent and well-adjusted than he was.” She shakes her head. “I’m not sure if it was weaponized incompetence or if he was genuinely an idiot. Probably a mix of both. But regardless, I’m still the sucker, because I did everything for him, anyway.”
“Why?” I prod.
Lina shrugs. “I don’t know. It just happened. I felt like I was supposed to. But the worst part is that I liked doing it. I like doing it—doing things for other people. It makes me feel… I don’t know. Good, somehow. Complete. Settled. Because I need to. Even at the expense of my own dignity and mental health.”
Interesting. “At least you realized it and dumped his ass,” I offer. “That’s the most important part.”
“After wasting years of my life,” she scoffs.
“Well, you learned something about yourself and grew in the process,” I say like a lame dad giving lame dad advice.
Thankfully, she smiles at me.
I want more of it, so I go on. “Sucks for him, you’re still hot as fuck!” I declare, repeating her words from yesterday. “Honey, they did you a favor! You were carrying that whole relationship anyway—your back needs a break!” I’d break your back in a heartbeat, darling , my amygdala mutters. I shoo it away.
But I get a laugh, and it’s like having my own personal fireworks show on the beach. She gets up from the lounge chair and comes over to sit next to me, dangling her legs through the railing like mine.
“I had all these grand plans for the summer, like growing tomatoes and knitting and binging shows, but… this has been enough so far.”
“Hobbies?” I scoff jokingly. “What are those?”
“What’d you used to do when you had the time?”
Is it bad that I really have to think about it? “I used to play basketball in one of those fun adult leagues with a bunch of friends. Explored all the good bars and restaurants in the city. Live music. I used to read a ton. Like, an ungodly amount. I’m lucky if I read one book a year now.” I think some more. “I used to run, too. I still run on lunch breaks, but not as much as before.”
“What music do you listen to while running?”
I smirk, thinking about the songs I crush during Flores karaoke. “I’m an older millennial who grew up not far from where Biggie grew up. R&B and hip hop and rap from the early 2000s and 2010s.”
She grins. “I, too, am a born and raised Brooklyn millennial. Same.”
We sit and watch the ocean and drink our wine, while an image pops up in my brain, distinct and specific and detailed—Lina at this year’s Flores Christmas, with me and her and Frankie belting out Mary J. Blige. I like this daydream a lot, so much, too much, so I force it away, along with all the nasty things rapped about in rap songs that I’d like to do to Lina. Out, damned spot .