19. Flick
FLICK
There was a new membership board meeting that afternoon. Normally this would mean nothing to Flick, but Mossimo got a call in the kitchen. The meeting had run so late that Mr. Birch had asked for lunch to be brought in.
“Me?” Flick asked. He really did not want to go in there. He did not want to overhear anything. Let his mother and Stan get the email or the call or whatever embossed fancy stationery was sent to the house, if they were accepted. All it boiled down to was the fact that not everyone in his house would win: good news for his mother meant bad news for him.
For days his mother had talked about nothing except their pending application. Worse, she’d gone shopping for new “outfits” to wear to the club, and they didn’t look anything like what the other women at the club wore.
That morning, before work, she’d cornered him. “So? Has Mr. Birch given you any indication?”
“Mom, I’m just a kitchen and snack bar kid,” he’d reminded her. “If it’s not about cheeseburgers or beurre blanc sauce, it doesn’t apply to me.”
Josie had not been dissuaded. “Work hard this week. And if you see Mr. Birch go out of your way to smile.” She pinched his cheek. “Such a gorgeous smile!”
Flick doubted very much Mr. Birch would say anything to him, and in fact he prayed he would not. It would be awkward. Plus, he had very mixed feelings about his mother and Stan joining. Not only did he not like the other teens who belonged there, but he had to admit it—bad as he felt for saying so, it didn’t seem like a place Stan and his mother would really fit in.
Josie was a whole lot younger than the other moms with kids his age. Sure, she kept herself in shape, but she favored blingy jewelry and animal prints and tight-fitting clothes. He’d bet his life she did not own any monogrammed sweaters or lobster-print skirts. And let’s not get started on Stan. Stan’s idea of dining room attire was a purple satin shirt unbuttoned down to the tangle of gold necklaces in his abundant chest hair. Flick shivered just imagining him seated next to Mrs. Babcock in the dining room, bellowing “Pass the hot sauce!”
“Knock first,” Mossimo said to him now, as he helped Flick load the service cart. “The board members don’t like to be interrupted.”
Resigned, Flick pushed the cart down the hall and knocked. When it opened, Bitsy Babcock stared up at him through her thick glasses. “Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in. How delicious!” She ushered him inside.
The meeting was deep in progress, and no one besides Bitsy noticed him or the food, or seemed very happy, for that matter.
“Set it where everyone can reach, dear,” Bitsy whispered, pointing to the center of the table around which the board members were seated. Besides Mr. Delancey and Mr. Birch, who sat at opposite ends, Flick didn’t recognize many faces. They all looked to be locked in some kind of debate.
Neiman Shrive’s staid expression flickered to life at the sight of the food, and he snatched a sandwich from the platter before Flick even set it down. No one else so much as blinked. The tension in the room was thick, and Flick wanted to beat it out of there as fast as he could.
“We cannot ignore the fact that membership numbers are at a historic low, and if all we’ve got are four applicants then we need to consider all four,” a man was saying.
Mr. Delancey threw his pencil on the table, irritably. “Forget consider. I say we just take them.”
Flick’s heart skipped. He could already hear his mother shrieking with glee.
“Agreed,” another said. “We need the funding for operations.”
A rousing discussion erupted, and Mr. Birch stood up. “That may be the case, but Mayhaven has always had a selective process in place. No need to abandon that.”
Flick was just finishing filling water glasses and about to excuse himself when Mrs. Babcock piped up.
“Ned, you seem hesitant,” Bitsy said. “Please tell us, is there an applicant in particular that you’re concerned about?”
The water pitcher in Flick’s hands slipped. For the first time since he’d entered the room, Mr. Birch’s gaze swung his way.
Flick knew exactly which application Mr. Birch was concerned about. He steadied the pitcher, whispered an apology, and ducked out.
“Everything go okay?” Mossimo asked.
Despite his armpit stains, he nodded. There was no reason to be upset: Flick never wanted to join in the first place. Now he could keep his job.
But then he thought of Josie. His mother had worked hard raising him as a single parent. She wanted this badly. And whether she fit it or not, that was up to her to figure out. The more Flick thought about it, she deserved to be there as much as any of those pearl-clutching members he served each day. Even more.
A wave of fresh doubt about Mr. Birch washed over him. The guy had been so nice—even after the way Stan treated him. But was Flick wrong about Mr. Birch? Was this payback for the stuff going on between the neighbors?
Mossimo’s booming voice interrupted his thoughts. “You’re scheduled for the snack shack. Don’t forget to replenish the condiments and paper goods, yes?”
“Yes.” Flick was on his way to the pantry when he stopped. “Excuse me, Mossimo?”
The chef looked up from a pot of bisque he was stirring.
“Mr. Birch, he’s a good guy, isn’t he?”
Mossimo frowned. “Why do you ask?”
Instantly Flick regretted opening his mouth. Mossimo was his boss, not his friend.
But then he pictured his mother’s expression if she found out that they didn’t get in. Could Flick work in a place where his own family wasn’t welcome?
“My parents applied for membership,” he blurted out.
Mossimo flicked off the gas range and turned to Flick. “You’re going to join Mayhaven?”
“That’s the thing. I’m not sure they—we—are going to get in.”
The chef stared thoughtfully into the pot of soup. Flick worried he’d overstepped. “Mayhaven is a lovely place,” Mossimo said. He gestured to the swinging door separating the dining room from the kitchen. “Their world is on that side of the door, and our world is on this side. Today you are on this side.” He shrugged. “Tomorrow, who knows? To answer your question, Mr. Birch is a good man. He has a vision for this place. This place, however, is a bubble.” He held out his arms. “Yes?”
Flick nodded.
Mossimo returned to his pot. “It is a beautiful bubble though, no?”
In the pantry, Flick thought about what the chef had said. Mayhaven was a bubble. Just walking through the front door each day, Flick felt transported. And the beauty of the place—the insane sunsets and mountain views, the glossy stretch of lake water when the last swimmer exited for the day—well, if there was anywhere prettier, Flick had not yet been. Sure, there were the cliché haves and have-nots, the members and the staff. Just look at the cars in the lot. But up here at the club, you felt like the world was okay. Hell, it wasn’t just okay—it was grand. From the clink of ice in a tawny glass of bourbon to the fairways as green as the money that played them, these people were unconcerned by the everyday. It wasn’t their fault. It was the bubble.
He’d loaded a crate with paper goods for the snack shack when Mossimo poked his head in the pantry.
“Mr. Flick?”
Flick set the crate down.
Mossimo paused. “One more thing: we are in the service industry. It’s not just a job. It’s an honor.”
Flick had heard all this before. Us and them, servers and members . “Yeah, I know. We need them.”
“No, no.” Mossimo shook his head. “They need us.”
They need us. Flick repeated it silently to himself as he scooped melted ice cream and poured lemonades at the snack shack. It was a reversal from what he’d thought the chef meant, and he liked the sound of it. He liked it a lot.
When a mother with a screaming toddler asked him to recook a cheeseburger, medium not well, Flick told himself that this mother needed him. When a family left a mess of ketchup-covered napkins and spilled soda on a picnic table, he repeated the mantra while he picked up their trash and wiped the surface clean. And when Spencer Delancey and a crew of his friends lined up at the shack window, chests puffed and bare, he screamed it in his head.
“Hey, man,” Blaine said. “So, we need some dogs and burgers to take out on the boat.”
“And drinks,” one of them added, turning to watch a girl in a bikini walk by. “Don’t forget the drinks.”
Flick really hoped they weren’t about to ask him to serve them beer again. Instead, he wrote down their orders, keeping his face neutral.
“Okay,” he said, reading the order aloud to Blaine, because he didn’t want them coming back. “Three cheeseburgers, one burger no cheese, two hot dogs, four fries.”
“And six Coronas.” Flick looked up. It was not Spencer Delancey this time, but one of his floppy-haired wingmen, Russ.
“You know I can’t do that, man,” Flick said, looking him dead in the eye.
Russ leaned in. “Because you’re a pussy?”
Flick swallowed. “Because you’re not twenty-one. And I’ll lose my job.”
“So get a job at McDonald’s. What’s the difference?” Russ laughed along with the others, Spencer included. What did Darcy see in this guy? “Come on, do me a solid, and I’ll do one for you.” He pulled a folded bill from his phone case and stuck it in the plastic tip jar. Flick could see the Benjamin.
Flick didn’t want to help Russ out any more than he wanted to owe him anything. He stared at the one-hundred-dollar bill. “Sorry, man.”
Russ’s face went dark. He was losing the argument and in front of his friends. “You kidding me? What the fuck.”
“Hey, come on.” To Flick’s surprise it was Spencer who’d spoken up. Maybe Flick was wrong about him. But no. “He’s not worth it, man.” Spencer clapped Russ on the back like he’d win next time. “You’re right, he’s a pussy.”
Spencer jammed his hand inside the tip jar, whisked the one-hundred-dollar bill out and gave it back to Russ.
The smug look on his face made Flick want to leap over the counter and pop him.
But a father with two little kids got in line, and the guys gave way. As he fried their burgers, Flick watched them head to the dock out of the corner of his eye. Only Blaine stuck around. Flick wrapped all the food neatly, even though he wanted to spit in it, repeating what Mossimo had said.
He watched Blaine carry the order to a slip where a sleek blue speedboat idled loudly. Spencer stood at the wheel. Blaine had barely boarded when Spencer threw the boat in reverse. The sound of the engine rumbled across the beach. Flick didn’t know a damn thing about boats, but he knew the rules. Motorized watercraft were supposed to taxi in and out at low speed, but the second Spencer put it in gear they took off. One of the guys stumbled backward. Someone’s hat blew off into the water. Their laughter carried on the wind as the boat tore out of the marina. The wake churned the water, lifted the dock, and left all the other boats rocking wildly against their moorings. They need us, Flick repeated. Only Mossimo’s words did little to lift his spirits this time.
As he drove home, Flick’s thinking had skittered back to doubt. The people at Mayhaven weren’t his people. And they never would be.
It made him miss home, and Mateo, and his old neighborhood even more.
In the driveway he parked behind Stan’s car— Lambo , as Stan in all his genius had nicknamed it. What would Spencer and Russ and those assholes think if he pulled up in that thing tomorrow? Flick allowed himself to revel in the image—he bet even that flashy attention-getter, Ashley Riley, would hustle over to check it out. Russ could take his one-hundred-dollar bill and shove it where the sun didn’t shine.
The one face he couldn’t conjure was Darcy’s. What would she think if he rolled in in the Lamborghini? He was pretty sure she’d be less than impressed. Maybe that was a good thing. Darcy was real, even if she was the daughter of the president of the bubble.
When he finally walked through the front door, his mother was waiting for him, breathless. “It’s unbelievable!”
Oh no. She’d gotten the news. He’d have to lie and tell her he’d heard there were hundreds of applicants, anything to soften the blow. It was for the best. She’d come to see that. “Look, Mom, who cares what those people think.”
“What people?” She cocked her head. “Wait—you don’t know, do you?” She turned and shouted to Stan, planted in his usual spot in front of the TV. “He doesn’t know, Stan!”
“So tell him.”
She turned back to Flick. “We got in!” she cried, jumping up and down. “The new member dinner is this Friday.” Then, “Oh, honey. We need to get you a suit!”
Flick stood in the foyer as Josie spun away and down the hall, still talking. It was official: he was a member of the bubble.
Up in his room, he texted Mateo.
Bad news. We got in.
A few minutes later, Mateo replied. Welcome to the dark side. I mean, the white side. LOL
Flick wanted to tell him, No man, it’s not like that. But he couldn’t think of a single member of color at Mayhaven. Not a one.
He texted back: Not so white anymore
I guess not. What about the girl?
What about her?
What’d she say?
Flick wondered if Darcy knew. He seemed to be on her good side again, after the other day with Adam. But he hadn’t crossed paths with her since.
Didn’t tell her.
Doesn’t she work there?
Yeah but haven’t seen her.
Beginning to wonder if this girl exists.
Flick went to his window and looked outside. There, in the backyard next door, as if summoned by his thoughts, was the entire Birch family. Mr. Birch and his wife stood by a smoking grill. Adam was floating on a yellow raft. And there, sitting at the edge of the pool, was Darcy. She wore a white bikini and she was dangling her legs in the water. For a second Flick was tempted to take a photo and send it to Mateo: proof of life . But it felt wrong.
At that moment, Darcy looked up. Flick hopped back behind the curtain. Surely the houses weren’t close enough for her to see him standing up there? He waited, then peeked out again. Now she was talking to her brother.
Flick allowed himself to watch as she swung her legs back and forth in the water. They were strong and suntanned and lovely. As lovely as the other day when she’d kissed him on the cheek and he’d watched them carry her across the grass away from him. A longing stirred inside him. He was still staring when Darcy looked up again. This time, she waved.
He went to get his phone off the bed to text Mateo back, but it dinged before he got there.
Meet me outside later?
It was Darcy.
Flick didn’t hesitate. When?