by Larry Brill
Some of them were interesting, but, “Wait a min-ute. You went with FesterFa.., uh, Russell, to Hawaii last summer.”
My, the lady doth blush. She looked at her lap with rosy cheeks and a grin that sweetened her face.
“Well, until then. But that’s not the point. You write great things. Things most of us without much imagination would never come up with.”
Despite never really getting the love he wanted from the studios, Nate had his moments. And as bad as some of those movies were, they would long outlive Nate’s personal expiration date. He had that going for him.
“I never got to live half the things I wanted to do, the kinds of things we talked about as kids. But you’ve gone out and done them.”
She made it sound good to Nate. To think it had been only a few months earlier that the most exciting thing he ever attempted in his life, his botched suicide, failed badly. Thankfully.
“Why not start now? What’s stopping you?” Nate waggled a finger at her, and Julie said, “Probably nothing.”
She began to gather up the discarded napkins and empty cups. She was smiling. “Carla says the same thing. She is so much like you. Thanks for the attitude adjustment. I should let you go.”
“What? So you can go home and nap?” Nate asked. “Screw the nap. That’s for old fogies and people without a life. Remember what I told you a while back? I’m Peter Pan. I’ll never grow up, and I can fly. Spend the afternoon with me and I guarantee if you don’t feel more alive when I’m through with you, you are a lost cause.” She hesitated. Nate expected her to reject the offer.
“Please?”
She appeared wary. The old Jules would have trusted him. She would have been all over the idea and ready to go.
“Okay. But this better be good, Buster.”
Later, Julie threw her arms around Nate’s neck, tossed her head back and said, “That was incredible. You were right. I’ve never felt anything like it.” She had burst from the wind tunnel and tugged a pair of safety goggles down around her neck before leaping into Nate’s arms. He used his hands to gently remove her helmet while basking in the closeness of her body. She didn’t let go of him. “Wow. Just wow,” she said.
They lingered on the deck next to a wind tunnel at the iFly Skydiving Center, an indoor skydiving simulator in Union City. He could have stood like that forever, nearly as thrilled as Julie had been in her five minutes floating on the air in the wind tunnel. At least he kept his feet on the ground. Nate had driven her to the skydiving center, doing his best to rebuff her curiosity as she peppered him about his plan every five minutes along the way. Her only moment of hesitation came as she paused at the front door, staring straight up at the five-story building. She was still flying high when they moved to a bench a few feet away afterwards.
“I don’t know how to thank you,”
Nate thought about this. Dare he? This could be fun, or it could blow up in his face.
“You want to thank me? Here’s what you do,” he said. He turned a cheek to Julie and tapped it. “Plant one right there, sister.”
“Is that all? Easy.” She leaned in.
Nate’s timing was exquisite. At the last possible moment before her lips reached him, he turned his head. Julie had, as he hoped, closed her eyes. She never saw it coming, and their lips met.
Julie jerked away, blushing. “You tricked me.”
“Yeah. Now that’s what I call living.”
“So is this.” And then she slapped him.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay
It wasn’t much of a slap. He would have been disappointed if she let him get away with stealing a kiss without penalty. She had to defend her honor. It was strong enough to send a message yet coy enough to leave him guessing how serious she was. He took that as a good sign. Right now he was willing to hang his hopes on ambiguity.
Not counting the first five or six years of his life, it had taken Nate about fifty to fully understand he was never going to be the swiftest dinghy in the harbor. He considered himself a skosh above average in intelligence, but it seemed the rest of the world moved about one click faster. Nate was quick enough as a high school ballplayer to hit a fastball about one-third of the time, which gave him a batting average that, in the majors, would get you into the starting lineup. Life was different.
Now he understood that, in life, being a bit slow on the fastball for the other two-thirds of the time was barely enough to foul off most of what it threw at him. And then there were those painful times when he would whiff entirely. He had whiffed with his ex-wife in marriage, and Eppie Johnson was a screwball that kept him off-balance and frequently flailing. He had struck out with Julie because he had been swinging with his eyes closed. Maybe that was his problem—he could hit the fastball but women kept throwing him curves.
Add Nicolette DuBois to the list. Just when he had given up on her, he found himself loitering with her and Mary, waiting for Festerhaven. She had invited them to a Christmas party before the holiday break at the marina where she docked her yacht. She made it clear she was looking forward to seeing both of them with teasing innuendo that was unmistakably directed at FesterBoy. He had begun to worry this crazy plot to play matchmaker between Festerhaven and Foxy Banker would turn out to be a waste of time. If Festerhaven were to be believed, he hadn’t had time to follow up after the “blind date” Nate set up. But Mary dropped a hint otherwise. Who to believe? That was a no-brainer; he knew what FesterLiar was capable of. But now, with Jules showing signs of interest and Nicolette firmly on team Russell, things were looking up.
My Husband’s Dowry impressed him. When Nicolette talked of having a yacht, Nate had in his mind the movie version of a rich man’s toy. He was thinking YACHT with a full crew and servants. Nate had seen motor homes on the L.A. freeway bigger than the Dowry. The ship in the neighboring slip dwarfed her. Her yacht was modest and cozy, not at all ostentatious, and that lack of flash appealed to Nate. Foxy Banker had good taste.
“Do you think Russell will get here soon?” she asked. Nate stood with her and Mary on the bay side of the dock that separated the boats. The party was happening behind them in the marina’s clubhouse on a knoll above the docks. She sipped from a wineglass, each time wiping off the lingering raspberry lipstick that perfectly matched her boots. She wore a short-waisted leather jacket over a thick sweater, tight jeans and a straw cowboy hat tilted on the back of her head as if it was ready to slide off.
Nate said, “I can’t imagine what’s keeping him. He had to monitor some kind of emergency school board meeting. It should have ended long ago.”
Simultaneously, he and she checked their phones. No FesterMessage. Music from a DJ’s sound system floated down to them from land, a few people mingled on the dock between the boats, and several lounged aboard the Dowry, where Nate could see their faces through the port holes, laughing in the bright light and warmth of the main cabin.
They strolled along the wooden dock that rocked under their feet back toward land. The small talk turned to jobs and current events, both personal and of the world, anecdotes that made them laugh and empathize with one another over the clueless bosses they had to deal with.
“Speaking of Russell…” Nate said before assuring them he was kidding.
At one point, a good-looking guy, all ego and no clue, approached Nicolette and offered to buy her a drink. The joke was, of course, that the party had an open bar. The fact that she gave him the once-over as if tempted raised Nate’s jealous hackles. He fended the guy off by mentioning how much Festerhaven was dying to see her again and wondered aloud what might be keeping him. Take that, you Old Spice-drenched Romeo.
Mary left in search of food and promised Nate she would return with a plate for him.
Over the next round of drinks, he picked several spots to praise Festerhaven with left-handed compliments, trying hard to remember, and not repeat, the spin he put into the Vintage Rascal profile.
“Yes, he’s
something, isn’t he?” Nicolette mused. “Just the other day, or maybe it was last week, we were talking about what he plans to do after getting his promotion.”
“That may be what today’s hoop-de-do is about. He’ll probably come waltzing in here with the job in hand.” The bright lights of the marina were behind her, putting her face in shadows that made it impossible to read. So he had been toying with Nate, and Mary was right. Multiple Festerhaven sightings could be a good sign.
Nicolette said she was surprised. “Then again, he probably didn’t say anything because he feels a little guilty. After all, you and I met online and I was supposed to be your date, and yet here we are. You have Mary and I have Russell. Weird the way that worked out, huh?”
“Weird.”
He might have explored the subject more, but Mary returned with two plates of grilled shrimp kabobs and Festerhaven on her arm.
“Look who I found wandering around up there,” she said.
“Thanks for waiting, gang,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe the cluster-fuck I had to sit through this afternoon.”
“So are congratulations in order? Is that what the board meeting was all about? You got the job, right? You are my new hero,” Nate said, though the words were sour in his throat.
“We were wondering if we should have a bottle of champagne on ice just in case,” Mary said.
“We’ll have to keep it on ice a little longer. The board put things off until after the holidays.” Festerhaven told them something vague about the dysfunction running rampant, keeping the board from taking action on the most trivial matters let alone something as critical as giving him the job that had, for all intents and purposes, already been offered. It was a lie; something about the glance Festerhaven gave him told Nate there was more to the story, and whatever it was had him pissed.
“I’m so glad you could make it.” Nicolette drummed her fingers on his chest and let them linger as she handed him her glass. The spark between them was never more obvious, and it acted like a switch that turned on his charm.
Suddenly she was ravenous and took him to find the buffet, leaving Mary and Nate alone on the dock. Mary rolled her eyes and tilted her head at her friend’s wake with the pained expression giving him the impression she had more than her share of time spent in her friend’s shadow.
She was a quiet conversationalist, speaking in soft tones, joking with him and engaging him thoroughly. It made getting through the next hour bearable until he could get Festerhaven aside for a private chat.
“Those fucking assholes. You know what they did this afternoon? They fired John Fox.”
“Superintendent Fox got fired? Just like that?” They stood at the very end of the dock and looked across the cove and over the narrow island that was a nature preserve separating them from the San Francisco Bay, protecting their harbor from the worst of the elements. The evening air smelled of saltwater, and Nate watched the lights of a jetliner on approach to Oakland airport on the opposite shore. What would this development mean to Julie’s engagement? Festerhaven had used the job as an excuse to avoid setting a wedding date. Now that was in doubt. With the job in jeopardy, they could put it off indefinitely. Or they could be married next week. It worried him.
“Who knows for sure why they dumped him? Something about some consulting contract or two the district handed out to some company or two that apparently had some connection or two to Fox’s wife. And maybe his father-in-law and Fox’s sister, a dozen cousins and who knows who else.”
“That sounds pretty bad.” Nate morosely stated the obvious.
“You know what that makes me? Tainted. Fox was the one who handpicked me for his assistant super. I pulled my buddy on the board aside before I left to get the skinny and he said one of those assholes even used the word toxic during the executive session.”
“Yowzer. What are you going to do now?”
“I’m not sure. The idea was to replace Fox when he retired in a couple of years anyway. Maybe we can accelerate that plan and get his job now. But that’s for tomorrow. Tonight?” Festerhaven broke into a broad smile. “Tonight? I’m going to drink. And I’m going to get laid.”
Nate toed the metal handrail to a ladder that rose from the water and curled over the edge of the dock. He leaned over. In the shadows on the water below, he could make out the nose of a rowboat tied to the pier. The rhythmic lapping of the harbor water was a nice counter to the sound of the party behind them.
“So when are you going to break the news to Julie?”
“What news?”
“Nicolette said you two have seen quite a bit of each other lately.”
“She said that?” Festerhaven joined him at the dock’s edge. “That wasn’t exactly for public consumption but, yeah, a couple of times. Three or four. Five at the most.”
“But what about your Boy Scout pledge, cross-my-heart-and-hope-to-spit promise? No hanky panky.”
“What? And you believed me?” He grinned, big and phony. He was the Cheshire cat. The light from the marina made the white of his teeth stand out against the shadows on the dock. The bell on a buoy near the mouth of the harbor clanged, and someone shouted on an unseen boat several slips away. Sounds carried in the stillness around them.
“This thing with Nicolette, then. Are you just having fun or is this serious? Or is it going to get serious?”
“I think I’m in love.”
“Lust.”
“Yeah, there is that.”
“Then you gotta do the honorable thing. Tell Julie you’ve had a change of heart. Break off the engagement. And it’s not fair to Nicolette, either.”
“Nothing in the rule book says a guy can’t have it all.”
Nate felt the shadow before he heard the voice. “Who’s engaged?”
They turned to face Nicolette and Mary.
“Who’s engaged?” she repeated. “To who?”
“Whom,” Mary corrected.
“And whom is this Julie?”
“Who.”
Simultaneously Nate and Festerhaven pointed to each other. “His.”
FesterLiar told her it was nothing serious, babe. Babe? Nicolette had graduated from perfect stranger to babe. She looked at Nate and asked him if that was true. “Sounds serious to me.”
Nate stalled. It depended on how seriously you define serious. That was something of a moving target, wasn’t it? It was a tough call. If he copped to the truth, Festerhaven being altar-bound, Nicolette would no doubt bail on him in a heartbeat. But lying wasn’t much of an alternative. Just ask the crew on the movie shoot in Amsterdam that took him for every penny he had at the poker table. Nate was piss-poor at bluffing.
Before he could answer, Mary tugged at his elbow and led him away to a safe distance. Maybe it was the way sound carried in the night, maybe it was the decibel level of the lovers’ quarrel, but it didn’t take long for them to draw the attention of others on the dock. Nate turned his back.
“It’s all my fault,” he said. It had been pure folly from the start. He really should have thought it through.
“You can’t blame yourself,” Mary said. She laid a reassuring hand on his arm. “You only introduced them. There is no harm in that, right?”
If you only knew, Nate thought. Then the argument stopped, punctuated with a splash. Nicolette stormed past them, across the gangplank into the cabin of her boat.
“Oh, my goodness,” Mary said.
They rushed to the edge of the dock in time to help Festerhaven climb off the top rung of the ladder, soaked from the top of his head to the tips of his loafers. He wiped the salty water from his face and flicked it at Nate, pointing his finger and growling. He stiffened his back, stood tall and walked past the party with more dignity than someone who had taken a dunk in the drink had a right to and went straight to the marina’s parking lot.
Nate started after him but Mary held him back. Let him go and deal with it later. There was nothing they could gain from talking to him at the moment. A few minut
es later, Nicolette emerged from the Dowry purses in hand. She glared at Nate as she handed one purse to Mary.
“Let’s go. I’ve had enough of this.”
Mary shook her head. She said she would stay a little longer, frustrating Nicolette, who stared at her, branding her a traitor. They watched her walk away until she turned for the steps to the marina house.
“Well, that was certainly exciting,” Nate said.
“Nicki is one of my best friends, but it was bound to happen.”
“What do you mean?”
“Let’s just say they deserve each other. I could tell you stories.”
Mary had a hand on his right arm. “I’m not sure I want to hear them,” he said.
“That is unfortunate because they’re pretty entertaining. But we can find other things to talk about on the way home. Nicki was my ride.”
She focused on Nate with eyes so seductive she appeared to be a woman hoping for a good old-fashioned ravishing. Were her eyes blue or green? He couldn’t remember. They started back toward the marina parking lot, and as they went up the steps, she asked, “You aren’t engaged, are you? Or have a girlfriend?”
“Not even close,” he replied. Not anymore. He had a sinking feeling that Festerhaven dashed his scheme with cold water the moment his butt hit the bay.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Another Bad Lang Syne
Carla had a way of making you do silly things. Some were more embarrassing than others. Some should never be spoken of outside the home. So New Year’s Eve, Julie sat on Carla’s sofa with a paper party hat on her head with bits of tinsel that dangled over her brow and into her eyes. She held a gold-striped party whistle like a cigarette between her fingers the way Lauren Bacall would in an old black-and-white film. Nate would be tickled that the image would cross her mind. But at the moment, she was of a mind to smack him. Or kiss him. She wasn’t sure which.
Nate was complicating her life. He kept assuring her he was satisfied with their friendship the way it was. Then he deliberately cheered her up when she needed it most and took advantage of her when her guard was down, like that stunt at the skydiving center. Worse, he started invading her thoughts at quiet times during the day and making her restless at night. She wanted to smack Nate just for being there, and just for being Nate, because she had been thinking about him more than she should, and that wasn’t fair to Russell. Once she recovered from her free fall at the skydiving trip, the pleasure it brought had her walking on eggshells around Russell. It was almost enough to make a girl wear yellow shoes so the yoke stains wouldn’t show.