Summer of Seventeen

by Jane Harvey-Berrick

  I wasn’t sure why I was being asked for dinner now. Maybe because Sean’s brothers were home, or maybe Mrs. Wallis thought it was the right thing to do since Mom died.

  But Sean was like my brother, so I wasn’t going to say no.

  He had three real brothers, all older than him.

  Dylan was 23, and had graduated in the same year as Julia. He was in med school at Florida State now and didn’t come home all that often. He was okay. He told great stories about anatomy class and what it was like dissecting some poor bastard who’d donated his body to medical science. He brought a finger home once when he was pre-med. Dylan didn’t do cool shit like that anymore. But you don’t want to know what happened to the finger; I’m just saying the next door neighbor’s dog was sick for three days—probably the formaldehyde.

  And it didn’t seem so funny after Mom died.

  Aidan was 22 and had graduated from U of SC in Business and Marketing. He’d just scored some fancy internship with an advertising agency in Chicago. I only knew that much because Sean had griped about his parents making a big deal of it. I don’t know, maybe it was a big deal, but I couldn’t imagine working in an office all day. I liked Aidan. He was the one who’d taught me to surf when I was eight, and we’d spent a lot of hours together catching waves. That’s why it seemed so weird that he was going to live in a city so far from the ocean.

  Patrick had just finished his first year at MIT and was planning to major in Aerospace Engineering. He was also a dick, and I was glad when he moved away. I wasn’t looking forward to seeing him now. He used to beat the crap out of Sean until he grew big enough to hit him back.

  But, like I said: family of over-achievers. Sometimes I didn’t envy Sean his car and allowance.

  He was quiet on the ride over. I knew why and didn’t blame him. Hell, I’d be quiet with all that weight of expectation pressing down on me.

  I don’t know if Mom wanted me to be anything. She always said she was happy if I was happy. But she was proud of Julia going to college. It was only community college to get her AS degree in Elementary Education so she could get a job as a teacher assistant, but it meant she was the first person in our family to study after high school. The money was shit: $10.23 an hour. Hell, if I went to college, I’d want to earn more than that—something that would make sitting in a classroom for years worthwhile.

  I don’t think Sean had a choice about going to school. His parents started a college fund for him before he was born. The only choices he had were Florida State, where Mr. Wallis had gotten his bachelor’s degree; Ole Miss, where Mrs. Wallis went before she got married; or U of SC because Aidan had gone there. They already knew he wasn’t going Ivy League.

  Sean had the air turned up real high, so I was shivering even though I was wearing jeans and it was 90 degrees outside and damn near 90% humidity, too. It was one of those evenings where it felt like you could wring out the air and make it rain.

  But it was the tension in Sean that made me the most uncomfortable.

  “You okay, man?”

  He shot me a sideways glance.

  “Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  I shrugged. If he didn’t want to talk, that was fine by me.

  “No reason.”

  He looked like he was going to say something else, but then changed his mind.

  He fiddled with his iPhone and tried not to wince as the car lurched toward the curb. The beat of ‘Damned If I Do Ya’ came through the speakers. It wasn’t music to slit your wrists by, but it was close. I would never admit it to Sean, but I preferred Jack Johnson.

  “You seeing Yansi tomorrow?”

  “Nope. She’s got church then family time.”

  He pulled a face. “Fuckin’ family time. It’s overrated, bro. You’re better off without it.”

  “Nice to have the choice,” I muttered.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “Sorry, man. That was a shitty thing to say.”

  I stared out of the window. “’Sokay.”

  “Fuck, I mean it. You’re my brother. You’re more family to me than any of them. Hell, your Mom practically raised me. She was the one who taught me to hold the toilet seat up in case it fell when I was taking a wiz and cut off my johnson.”

  I laughed out loud. “Mom said that?”

  “Yeah! Freaked me out, too! I’ve never forgotten it. I was nine. I pissed in the tub for a month after she told me that.”

  I had to hold my stomach, I was laughing so hard.

  “Seriously! Your mom was a legend.”

  The smile slid off my face, and I sighed. “Yeah. She was.”

  We were both silent for a moment.

  “You miss her,” he said at last.

  I couldn’t take talking about her in the past tense anymore.

  “You grow a vagina this week?” I snarked. “Because you’re talking like a pussy.”

  Sean laughed. He knew exactly what I was doing, but he didn’t call me on it. It was times like this that I remembered why I put up with the sorry fucker.

  When we got to his house, the driveway was full of cars. I felt a stab of jealousy that everyone in Sean’s family had their own rides, and then I wondered how come his other brothers all drove Beamers when he had a Toyota, even if it was a new one.

  Sean must have guessed some of what I was thinking.

  “You sure you want to hang with the bougies?”

  I grinned. “You bet!”

  Sean looked relieved. He probably thought I was going to bail on him, but if he lived at my place and knew that the only option for food was Cheerios or baloney, he’d be hittin’ up the Wallis house, too.

  As soon as we were parked, Patrick and Aidan came around from the side of the garage, arguing and shoving each other jokingly. Patrick was carrying a basketball and threw it straight at Sean so it would have slammed into his chest if he hadn’t caught it in time.

  “The kids are here,” laughed Patrick.

  “Asshole,” Sean muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

  Aidan came over to shake hands.

  “Hey, Nick. How you doin’, man? Sorry about your ma.”

  “Yeah, thanks,” I said awkwardly, shoving my hands in my pockets.

  I hated it when people said stuff like that to me, but I hated it more if they pretended it hadn’t happened. I guess there isn’t really a good way to bring it up. Although Jesse in my homeroom probably won the prize for the most crass comment.

  “Hey, heard your mom died. Rough break. Did you know corpses piss and shit themselves because the muscles don’t work anymore?”

  Sean would have punched him in the face if I hadn’t gotten there first. I didn’t get detention for that either. I got sent to the guidance office, and was allowed to do what I wanted for pretty much the rest of the day.

  I almost hoped Jesse would say something else dumb the next day too, because then I could have another day of slacking off. But he didn’t. Guess someone ‘had a word with him’. He avoided me after that, although it was two days before he could see out of his left eye and another week before the bruise faded. Guy was a harmless dick really.

  Sean tossed the basketball into a bush and smiled as Patrick cussed him out.

  “Welcome to the Brady Bunch,” muttered Sean.

  We all walked into the house together, but it was only when I was side by side with Patrick, that I realized I was a couple of inches taller than him. I’m not generally the kind of guy who holds a grudge, but I got a kick out of the fact that I could look down on him. He seemed kind of pissed about it, too.

  Mrs. Wallis came out to corral the troops and send us to wash up. Yeah, really. Like we were first graders or something.

  Patrick rolled his eyes but Aidan just laughed and gave his mom a hug. I saw Sean watching, something like envy on his face. The expression quickly faded.

  When Mrs. Wallis saw me, she came over, acting really formal.

  “Good evening, Nicolas. How are you coping, dear? And
how’s that lovely sister of yours?”

  Nobody called me ‘Nicolas’ except her. I asked Mom once and she said that wasn’t my name. Maybe Mrs. Wallis thought it would make me sound like a kid whose parents were members at the country club. It didn’t. I thought it was kind of amusing, but I knew it irritated the hell out of Sean. He thought his mom was pretentious. I had to agree.

  “Yeah, okay thanks. She’s good.”

  She nodded quickly and gave me a practiced smile. Damn, her teeth were white and really, really big, like Tom Cruise big. I wondered if she’d had more work done on them.

  “Do take a seat, dear,” she said, pointing at the straight-backed dining room chairs.

  I always felt like an imposter when I had to sit down to dinner like this. I couldn’t imagine why people enjoyed it; it gave me gut-ache, sitting there all tense, waiting to drop something or spill something. At the Alfaros’ house, nobody cared about that. I had to concentrate because it was all in Spanish, but even with Mr. Alfaro there, it was always noisy and fun. Not that I talked that much, but I liked being there. Here, I felt like I was taking a test.

  Sean hated it, too.

  Dylan wandered in, looking at something on his phone, but he turned it off when Mr. Wallis came in and sat at the head of the table. He always sat there; I guess he wanted to let everyone know that he was in charge.

  Aidan and Sean brought the food in while their dad started grilling me.

  “So, young man, what have you been up to this summer? Being a beach bum, like my youngest, I presume.”

  I shot a look at Sean and he pulled a face before darting back into the kitchen to carry more dishes.

  “No, sir. I’ve been working.”

  Mr. Wallis looked surprised.

  “Really? Doing what?”

  “Yard work—lawn care.”

  He looked amused.

  “Well, at least it won’t be too challenging for you.”

  Bastard. I felt my cheeks heat up with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. When Sean walked back in I knew he’d heard because he looked pissed, but he didn’t say anything either. Maybe my father was a prick for not caring enough to want to see me even once, but at least I didn’t have to live with a prick for a father every day of my life.

  Aidan looked at me sympathetically while Patrick just smirked at his father, sharing in the holy fucking joke of me doing yard work to make some money.

  Mrs. Wallis said grace and then told us to pass the food around.

  Patrick went into a long monologue about MIT and how he’d decided to choose his major. He made it sound like NASA would have a big hard-on for him once he’d finished his degree.

  “And what are your plans for college, Nicolas?”

  I was poised with a piece of roast pork halfway to my mouth. I laid my fork on my plate and looked up.

  “I don’t really have any plans at the moment.”

  Mr. Wallis looked like I’d just dropped my pants and pissed on the table leg.

  “Surely you have some idea?”

  “No, sir. I guess I just want to graduate high school.”

  He snorted in disbelief. “A high school diploma won’t get you far these days. You need a college degree unless you want to spend the rest of your life mowing other people’s lawns.”

  As he hadn’t asked an actual question, I didn’t reply. But he hadn’t finished yet.

  “Even Sean, who isn’t at all academically gifted, will be going to a good school. You have to plan ahead. Your mother must have wanted something better for you than yard work.”

  He spat out the last sentence and the table fell silent. Aidan looked pained, and even Dylan and Patrick seemed uncomfortable. Sean was pissed and about to say something, so I answered before he could rile up his old man.

  I looked across at Mr. Wallis and met his eyes. “She said she wanted me to be happy.”

  “So your mother had no ambition at all for you? You have none for yourself?”

  “Nick wants to be a shaper,” Sean said, unable to stay quiet for a moment longer.

  I hadn’t told many people that, because it seemed like a pipe dream. But I’d shaped three surfboards for myself in the last two years, starting from a block of solid foam, adding the stringer down the center for strength, covering it with fiberglass cloth, and glossing on the top layer that made you high if you breathed it in too much. Sean had been around quite a bit while I was doing that. The first board had been shit and impossible to balance on because I hadn’t got the rocker right, but the next ones had been pretty good.

  Mr. Wallis laughed. “Really? Is surfing all you boys think about?”

  “You have to be pro surfer to be a shaper and sell surfboards,” Patrick stated like I was too dumb to have thought of that. “You have to win competitions.”

  “Nick was runner-up at Ron Jon’s,” Sean said hotly, talking about the surf festival that was held at the pier every Easter. About fifty thousand people showed up to watch this year.

  Patrick looked surprised, but I could tell he was impressed and trying to hide it.

  “Runner-up isn’t winning,” Patrick went on, his voice smug. “And the Junior section doesn’t count.”

  I didn’t bother to tell him that I was runner-up in the men’s pro-am shortboard. Sean had loaned me the money for the $150 entry fee, and Julia had forged Mom’s signature for parental permission because I was under 18 and Mom been too weak to hold the pen.

  The winner was a pro surfer named Michael Dunphy. He’d been cool, chatting with me, giving me some tips, and when he heard that Yansi was from Panama, he told us about a trip he was taking down there and the awesome surf spots he’d be hitting up around Isla Grande and Bocas del Toro.

  “Nick’ll win next year,” Sean said. “Won’t you, bro.”

  I shifted uncomfortably in my chair. I hated everyone talking about me like that. And I wished I had Sean’s confidence in me winning. I’d have to put in a lot of hours, and what with school and work, I didn’t see how I’d have the time. Anyway, I’d only done the comp for a bet, although the prize money came in handy. But I wasn’t great as a competition surfer; I preferred being at an empty break with a consistent 8-10 foot swell, with one or two buddies or by myself. Older guys called it being a ‘soul surfer’. I don’t know about that—I just liked doing my own thing.

  “Nice job, Nick,” said Aidan. “That’s pretty cool! Maybe we could all head out to Shark Pit some time. You can show us how the pros do it.”

  “Hell, yeah!” said Sean, and immediately got called on his cussing.

  Shark Pit was a great beach break not far from us, that worked at its best when a large northern swell came in. It was a place where mostly locals went, and virtually a secret spot.

  “We should show Marcus,” Sean continued.

  “Who?” asked Patrick.

  “Nick’s roomie.”

  Mrs. Wallis looked taken aback. “You have a roommate? A school friend?”

  “No, we rent out a room at home.”

  Mrs. Wallis looked like she was having difficulty understanding the concept.

  “We put an ad on Craigslist,” I clarified.

  It didn’t seem to help much.

  “You rent a room?”

  “Yes,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes.

  “Your house must be bigger than I remember,” she sniffed.

  “We rent out Mom’s old room,” I said quietly.

  Wow, no wonder Sean wanted to get wasted all the time if that was what it was like for him at home.

  I was allowed to eat the rest of my dinner in peace after that.

  When we’d cleared the table, we headed out to Sean’s room to play on his Xbox.

  “Sorry about the inquisition,” he mumbled. “Dad’s always like that when the four of us are together. He probably thinks it’ll make me want to be more like them. And Mom’s just … what the fuck ever. I can’t wait to tell them I’m taking a year out for our surfari.”

  I rubbed a sp
ot on the back of my neck.

  “I don’t think I’m going to be able to afford it now.”

  He looked at me in horror.

  “You gotta, man! You gotta! I’m counting on you, bro. I’ve got to take some time out from school or my head will fucking explode. Come on! You promised.”

  I sighed and stared at my sneakers. They were just about trashed. A new pair would cost most of what I already had saved.

  “I don’t have the money and...”

  He shook his head furiously. “You’d be a shoo-in for financial aid in college.”

  “Maybe, but…”

  “And you’ve got a year to save up! You can…”

  “I can what?” I snapped. “Take another fuckin’ backbreaking job so I can pay for it? And what about college? Just because your parents think I’m dumb as dirt, it doesn’t mean I don’t want to go.”

  “Don’t lump me in with them,” he yelled. Then he gave a hollow laugh. “They think I’m dumb too, so don’t worry about it. At least you’re acing Spanish.”

  I gave him a wry grin. “See! Girls are good for something other than screwing.”

  “Speaking of which … what about you and Yansi? Have you plugged that hole yet?”

  “You did not just say that!”

  I threw a pillow in his face to make my point.

  “That means you haven’t!” he laughed.

  “Don’t go there, man,” I said, a slight warning in my voice.

  He held up his hands in surrender, then looked more serious.

  “Nick, we’ve been talking about this trip for two freakin’ years. Don’t bail on me now, man. I need this.”

  I sighed and leaned back against his bed. “Maybe I can do three months. If I work the rest of the year, maybe I’ll have enough.”

  “Eight months?” he wheedled.

  “Okay, four! Final offer.”

  “Ah, fuck,” he said, shaking his head. “I’ll talk you into it.”

  “Whatever, man!” I laughed.

  Sometimes one bad decision leads to another, and another, and another, and without even realizing it you’re some poor bastard with the house of cards crashing down on top of you. It seemed solid at the time.

  It started when Trey’s parents went away for the weekend. I didn’t know Trey that well—he was one of the graduating seniors, just one of the guys who surfed on weekends.